The Replacement: Reloaded
by Shadow Master
Summary: (BtVS/Original Four DMC games/FF XV/Bayonetta/More) They that no plan survives first contact with the enemy intact. Well what happens when many people with plans come together and Xander gets dragged into it?
1. Chapter 1

"The Replacement: Reloaded" by Shadow Master

email: ryley[underscore]breen

(BtVS/Original Four Devil May Cry Games/Final Fantasy XV/Bayonetta/Others)

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted material contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and/or associated companies. I make no profit off of this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this at any point in the future. I write stories like this because it's fun and because there are those readers who enjoy reading what I write. Therefore I would appreciate it if no legal action were taken against me. I can promise you that whatever money you get from me won't even cover a fifth of your legal fees.

Note 1: Yes I know that I already have a BtVS/DMC crossover posted but it's been such a long time since I wrote it I thought it might be best to keep things fresh by starting over. Also as you may be able to tell by the list of titles there have been some developments over the last year that've snagged my muses interest revitalizing my desire to work on a story like this. I will almost certainly take some material from the original crossover material or at least appear to because let's face it there are only so many ways to do certain things or get things going in the direction I want to take them. However it is my hope that with some help from Holyknight and perhaps some comments from you the readers I can make this into a story worth reading.

Note 2: Timeline-wise this will start early Season 3 for BtVS, Pre-Devil May Cry 3, Pre-Final Fantasy XV:Kingsglaive,

Note 3: As with all my stories I will do my best to adhere to the canon source material for each property as best I can but if something gets in the way of the story I wish to tell then it's going to get altered. Besides it's a matter of fact that all these properties were never designed with the intention of making them mesh perfectly so some changes are inevitable to keep contradictions/inconsistencies to a minimum. In any case if you're the sort of reader that considers any deviation from canon facts to be blasphemy of the highest order I recommend that you turn around right now.

For those of you with somewhat more flexible minds…LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED!

 _The Replacement: Reloaded_

 _ **Somewhere in South Western North Carolina**_

 _ **January 23**_ _ **rd**_ _ **, 1999**_

 _ **Vergil's POV**_

Looking at the old fashioned home that his search had brought him to, he hoped that the 'expert' he had consulted had been truthful, otherwise they would have to discuss his… displeasure in a very direct manner.

In the years since his mother's death he had spent a full decade learning to harness both his own demonic abilities as well as those of his Devil Arm Yamato. He'd travelled the world despite being a child, looking for anyone he deemed suitable to instruct him, often being forced to both lie as well as manipulate the teachers in order to get what he wanted. Despising the weakness of his human half, he ignored the philosophy and codes of honor his various sensei tried to teach him, focusing exclusively on mastering his powers and his weapon. For those who did not offend him he merely disappeared once he felt that he'd learned all he needed to. For those who sickened him but still possessed the knowledge he needed he tolerated them only until he'd learned all he needed to before killing them as his own personal graduation exam.

Once he felt himself ready he began the quest he'd sworn to take ever since that awful night fifteen years ago: to claim the power of his father, Sparda.

He'd learned a great many truths that night but one stood high above the others: without power, nothing you had was safe. Without sufficient power any possessions you had could be taken from you by beings that possessed more power than you did. Without enough power you could not protect those you were… fond of because they'd die by forces stronger or faster than you were. As such it was pointless to begin building anything, gaining anything, until you possessed enough power that none could even approach you without tasting bitter defeat.

While he still trained daily to push his own abilities to their limits, he'd realized three years ago that he was swiftly approaching the extent of what he was capable of as he was now. He was only half-devil, after all, and as much as he hated the fact, until he found a way to burn off his human heritage it would always exist to weigh him down. He had in the past briefly considered utilizing one of the various arcane means of replacing human weakness with demonic power but had dismissed the notion since no demon currently walking the Earth was acceptably strong enough. All of them were half human or less and even those boasting great power belonged to a species that had proven itself unable to withstand an assault by humans. Granted, the humans that killed a member of their race had possessed some skill and power, as small an amount as humans were capable of anyway, but still they had fallen and thus failed to meet his standards.

No, only the power of his father Sparda would be suitable for his ambitions.

This took him across the world a second time seeking out ancient libraries, scholars and beings that were old enough to have been around millennia ago for the answers he sought. Most were fools who believed the rumors and speculation of previous generations or coveted books that were obviously attempts at misdirection by his father. Nevertheless, piece-by-piece, he began to assemble an accurate history of what came before as well as clues that hinted at where his father's true demonic power resided.

That was what led him to the home of the human occultist Jude Arkham.

According to the source that had directed him to this house, the man, oddly enough, had started out as a priest before some tragic event caused him to abandon his faith in favor of the power that demons could provide. Ultimately it mattered not what the man's reasons were, only that they'd served as motivation enough to compel the human to search the darkest corners of the world in order to gain the power he desired. While he had never heard of the man prior to his source naming him, proof that the human had failed in his efforts to gain power, such exhaustive searching naturally implied that Arkham had conducted extensive research on the topic of demonic power.

A learned man such as that might very well know of Sparda as well as what happened to the Dark Knight's power.

Striding forward through the open gates, he could feel the wards and the spells that had been laced about the property but, from what he could tell, they were mostly dormant. Only those that would serve to notify Mister Arkham of his arrival were operating. This indicated that either the man had no talent for sorcery or that he preferred to keep the potent magicks under his direct control. Both options, automatic and manual control, had their benefits as well as their weaknesses. To leave something on automatic meant that the wards and spells would continue to act until they lost power or were destroyed. However much like mechanical security systems protections of a magical nature had yet to acquire a means by which they could adapt or think for themselves. Various mages had attempted to bind the soul of a suitable person to the security measures to direct them but this did not produce viable results. As a result being left on automatic made the spells and wards fairly direct in how they responded to the specified criteria, making them predictable and easily overcome.

In this case, in which the protections were under manual control, the one wielding them could cause them to strike with greater efficiency and strategy, increasing overall effectiveness. The downside though was that, once the controller was killed, the entire system went down. Thus all one needed to do was make their way to the one pulling the strings and end him in order to become safe.

Seeing ten shadows separate themselves from the objects they should've been attached to, he let his mind evaluate the oddity and soon came to a conclusion.

A group of creatures from the Seven Hells of the Demon Army from the evidence he saw before him.

With an almost whimsical use of his power he sent ten of his summoned magical swords at the shadows, piercing them clean through the middle.

As expected sounds of agony and fading unlife came from the shadows until they broke apart into fine powder carried off into nothingness by an unseen wind.

Proceeding up to the front door he was unsurprised to find it locked but two swift swings with Yamato corrected that issue, allowing him to enter. Looking about he saw that for the most part the décor was consistent with turn of the century sensibilities, with only a few modern additions incorporated likely out of necessity. A few scattered paintings, some tables with various accessories atop them and other random items but, from what he saw, Mister Arkham did not particularly care about the upkeep of his home. Either it had only recently been purchased or the man was more devoted to his arcane pursuits than he was about entertaining guests.

However when he witnessed three of the stone statues that were placed about the room come to life, looking at him with a singular eye, spinning into existence crimson energy arrows, he supposed the man did not like receiving visitors, invited or not. Deciding that the stone these constructs were made of would make them more resilient than the member of the Seven Hells, he unsheathed Yamato and lunged at the closest one, the tip of the blade leading the way. Most kenjutsu teachers he'd learned under would say that a katana was not meant for thrusting moves but rather slashes, but those teachers did not know anything about Devil Arms. Often taken from the souls of defeated foes, they were infused with demonic energy and made of materials no mortal swordsmith had ever encountered.

As a result, instead of breaking or bending away from the point of impact, his treasured sword knocked the animated statue onto its back, allowing him to execute a five hit combo that neatly cut its limbs off before killing it.

For the next he merely encircled himself with summoned blades before firing them off at the second statue, turning it into a rather uninteresting pin cushion before it fell over, lifeless.

He didn't even spare the final one much thought before executing a single Judgment Cut, ending its existence.

 _Surely he doesn't think that this can hold me back,_ he thought with a bit of annoyance as he proceeded to where he sensed the strongest concentration of magic.

There were few threats in the mortal would who could pose a serious challenge for him thanks to his years of thorough training, but what'd been sent at him thus far were less than dust in his eyes. Sent against ignorant humans and fools who thought themselves demon hunters it would've been enough but to him, a son of Sparda, they were nuisances more than anything else.

Still, one would think that someone capable of operating all of the arcane protections and sending demons to his will would have the ability to detect how powerful he was. Surely as a Devil-Human half-breed he warranted a stronger response than this. While there was a possibility that these resources were being sent at him to test his prowess, Arkham would have to do better to see ALL that he was capable of.

As he strolled down the hallway that would lead him to his objective, he sensed two presences pass from one wall to another behind him but when he turned to see what they were he saw nothing. However unlike some he would not dismiss his senses as mistaken and instead resumed his journey, maintaining a mental lock on his unseen followers. For the moment they seemed to be observing him, keeping pace with him but not overtaking, making him think that perhaps they were to be Arkham's trump card should their 'discussion' prove provocative.

Not entirely without merit but the tactic had failed the moment he'd detected them.

Arriving at the double doors, behind which he suspected Jude Arkham was waiting for him, he pushed them open, his eyes falling upon the one who might possess the answers he sought.

"You are Jude Arkham?" he asked in order to confirm what he already suspected to be true.

"I am. And you are?" Arkham asked, closing a book that he'd been reading before letting the holding arm drop to the side.

"Someone who seeks the location of the doorway to the Underworld," he replied, knowing from experience that in certain circles giving up your name freely was potentially lethal. "I'm told you're the sort of expert who knows things that others do not."

"I will admit that unlike others in my field I do not cringe at the mere mention of forbidden places," Arkham said, showing some pride on that point. "As to the doorway to the Underworld there are several, some more famous than others, and some do not lead to the same Underworld but rather a similar environment. I would need more information before I could determine if I have what you seek."

"I seek 'the tower that has been sealed' as it was referred to in a book I came across," he replied, deciding to test the man to see just how much Arkham knew. "The book implied that the tower has not been seen by mortal eyes in two millennia."

"Well, that does narrow down the list of potential locations," Arkham replied as he walked over to a bookshelf. "As it so happens I actually possess in my keeping a book I believe focuses on the location you seek. I had contemplated going there myself to see if I could acquire some small sliver of its power but when I read of the… gate keepers within, I decided discretion was the better part of valor."

 _Those who seek power but do not have the resolve to obtain it do not deserve to possess any at all,_ he thought with contempt at the failure of a man standing before him.

The pulsing scar on the side of his head and the flawed power within were proof enough that Jude Arkham had attempted to soar to new heights in the past but had failed miserably. Still, he was somewhat reassured that a new source of information might well be within his reach bringing him that much closer to his goal.

"If the location in that book is indeed what I seek then you're free to plunder what you want from the tower once I am done with it," he said, deciding that the time had come to broach the topic of payment. "However I must insist on inspecting the contents of the book myself before I agree to anything more."

Stepping towards the man, he felt the two presences that had been tailing him rear up in preparation to strike but he was not worried. With a pulse of power he teleported himself behind his pursuers and, with two slashes from Yamato that would be beyond the human's ability to perceive, cut them in half. Two distorted death cries echoed throughout the room, fading as they travelled, even as the ting of his katana snapping the final inch into its sheath put the exclamation point on their end.

"But of course," Arkham said, his eyes only slightly widening at the display.

Solid composure and some strength of will.

Both qualities would make the man a suitable subordinate for what he had planned…

…until he outlived his usefulness, of course.

 _ **Jude Arkham's POV**_

 _Huh… the fool actually believes he came here of his own free will,_ he thought as he watched Vergil, son of Sparda and the human woman Eva, leave to go ahead to the location of Temen-ni-gru.

Then again he supposed that, given the man's pedigree and the reports of his travels abroad, a bit of arrogance was not unfounded. Ever since the failed ritual that cost him his wife and the departure of his daughter Mary, the pain throbbing on the left side of his face served as a constant reminder. Up until the beginning of the ritual he'd been so certain that he'd memorized all the details and followed all the preparation steps to the letter. However as his scarred visage and the other costs he'd been forced to pay confirmed he would not ever consider the events of that night a success.

He chuckled as he remembered his early years before he'd set foot in the domain of the supernatural.

In the beginning he'd been your typical collar-wearing drone, completely devout to the teachings of the Church but then something had happened that had changed his life forever. He had been walking home from some last minute paperwork at the chapel when he'd heard a woman's scream of fear and, while he'd been tempted to simply find a phone to call the police, he chose in the end to go to the woman's aid.

What he'd found had been shocking to say the least and had almost caused him to freeze.

Sitting on the ground, holding a cross in front of her, was a brunette woman in her mid-twenties looking for all the world like the object she held was the only thing keeping her alive.

What was threatening her life? Demons.

He hadn't recognized them at the time and to this very day he had been unable to find a reference to them in his extensive library, but it'd been clear all those years ago what they intended. Rational thought hadn't been with him at the time and so he'd grabbed the nearest strong implement, a rusted lead pipe, before charging the demons, swinging at the first one to come within range. It connected but he still attacked, intent on doing so until he was sure it would not get back up and once the first was down he'd gone on to attack the others. Reflecting on that encounter years later, he surmised that the demons had been stupefied at the sight of a priest wielding a pipe, coming out of nowhere and yelling like some sort of Viking berserker. In the end it'd been more luck than skill that'd allowed him to emerge victorious with only a minor laceration from one of the demon's claws that needed tending to.

What followed was your typical good citizen routine, with him asking if she was okay and offering to take her back to his church for her own safety. The woman, whose name he later learned to be Kalina Ann de Marli, tentatively accepted his invitation but he'd been able to see even then her wariness when it came to trusting strangers. Deciding to be patient with her, he'd taken her back to the church, holy ground where no demon could tread, and tended to her wounds before offering what little food and drink was stored there. It hadn't been until nearly a week later that he'd possessed courage enough to inquire as to why the demons had been after her.

Kalina had told him of how they'd attacked her in the next town, speaking in their guttural language as they attacked her, but that she hadn't been able to understand more than bits of what was spoken. As far as she'd been able to determine they'd been demanding to know the location of the gateway to the underworld and threatened to kill her rather than just drain some of her blood. The woman's recollection was fragmented, most likely due to the fear, but the last thing she'd been able to recall had been the words 'Temen-ni-gru'.

He, of course, being a mere town priest, didn't recognize any of what the demons had spoken of and so he had contacted the most learned priest he knew of who occasionally performed exorcisms when the situation called for it. Most of what he'd told Father Perlich had only garnered a concerned reaction but when he mentioned Temen-ni-gru the man's disposition changed significantly. He'd then been instructed by his elder priest to immediately perform the necessary purification rites around the church and regularly sprinkle holy water over every method of entry. Father Perlich had said that he'd be there soon with help before hanging up.

At the time he'd been overjoyed at the prospect of having someone truly trained to combat the forces of darkness come to drive the demons away.

What a fool he'd been.

In the few days that followed the demons had made numerous attempts to breach the defenses of the church but they had been unsuccessful, with a few being fatal failures. It was on the fourth day that a black car followed by a similarly colored van had pulled up to the church and Father Perlich emerged along with others clearly garbed to fight demons. As was polite and appropriate he'd welcomed them all as well as thanked them for their speedy arrival before beginning to explain the horrors that'd assailed them since the phone call.

Father Perlich, though, had quickly cut him off and asked to see Kalina Ann himself in the interests of hearing her story firsthand. Thinking nothing of it he'd led the entire group inside to where the woman he'd saved sat reading the newspaper. From there the meeting had begun, with Father Perlich first asking for a retelling of the events surrounding her initial attack by the demons and continuing up to his rescue of her. His learned elder had been somewhat cold and harsh but at the time he'd simply assumed that the man viewed details as very important and took his job seriously. After nearly an hour of hearing the tale and pressing for every detail possible he'd carefully inquired about what they would do next.

He'd assumed that Kalina Ann would be escorted out of the country and placed on the holiest ground possible in order to keep her safe.

Instead the men that'd accompanied Father Perlich had drawn rather ornate looking daggers that nevertheless looked quite lethal from within their robes and advanced on the woman. Naturally he'd demanded to know what was going on and why they were threatening someone they should've been driven by their oaths to protect. Father Perlich had at first refused to answer and had only ordered him to step away from Kalina Ann but, when he'd refused, the man had seemingly deigned to give SOME information.

Apparently the term Temen-ni-gru referred to an unholy structure created over two thousand years ago with the purpose of opening a gateway between the human world and hell. His elder admitted that the church did not have all the details or, if they did, he had not been informed of them, but one thing that had been made perfectly clear was this: the structure must NEVER be used. When he had done the logical thing and inquired what that had to do with Kalina Ann, Perlich had merely said that for the greater good of all humans threats must be eliminated without exception.

As if it were some great consolation he promised that the church would pay her funeral expenses in full with genuine prayers for God to forgive her and grant her admittance into heaven.

It went against everything he had ever been taught, everything he'd ever believed, about the church and, in a storm of shock, instinct took control. With speed born of desperation and quite a bit of adrenaline he rushed the closest armed man, punched him square in the jaw and stole the dagger before moving onto the next closest one. Before Father Perlich could react half his men were dead. When the remaining half and his elder priest acted to stop him he'd already come to the conclusion that he'd passed the point of no return. He'd committed multiple acts of murder and attacked men of the church.

With this in mind he'd pushed himself to his limit to kill everyone but him and Kalina Ann, for that was the only way either of them would've lived long enough to come up with a plan.

His efforts hadn't been pretty and by the time he'd gazed into the expiring life in Father Perlich's eyes he had quite a few bleeding wounds, though nothing severe enough to keep him from standing. Kalina Ann had been shocked into speechlessness by what she'd seen but he'd known that they didn't have time to talk things out. He'd feared that Father Perlich might've been expected to submit a status report within the hour and, when it didn't happen, the hunt for him and Kalina Ann would've been on. Taking the elder priests car keys he'd dragged Kalina Ann out to the vehicle and put her inside before taking the spare fuel canister from the trunk and sprinkling the gasoline over the outer walls of the church.

A lit match later and the church had been ablaze, the bodies of his victims still inside.

It'd been his logic that, by the time the rubble was sorted through and the bodies identified, he and Kalina Ann would be far away.

For four days and four nights they'd travelled, one sleeping while the other drove, until he'd been convinced that the two of them were well outside any search range the church would abide by. Taking anything of value from the vehicle, he'd pushed it off a cliff he'd found on a road that hadn't looked very well-travelled before walking to the nearest town. Together they'd concocted a story that their car had suffered a serious problem and had gone out of control, causing them to dive out of it moments before it'd gone off a cliff. He'd been certain that any clues that might've brought the wreck to the attention of the authorities or the church would've been destroyed either by the impact or the flames generated by the explosion.

For a time they'd cautiously maintained an awareness of their surroundings, warily watching for signs of pursuit or suspicion, but after half a year with no cause for concern appearing they'd allowed themselves to believe that they were finally safe. The two of them had used the money gained from the silver implements that'd been in Father Perlich's car that they'd sold, after melting the more conspicuous ones into bars, to buy a small home. He'd later gotten a job at the local library while Kalina Ann gained employment at a supermarket as a cashier. Between the two of them they were able to make ends meet and within a year of purchasing the home they'd been blessed with another bit of good fortune; their firstborn, Mary.

For a time both he and Kalina Ann basked in the joy of parenthood, feeling all but certain that their time of horrors and danger had finally passed.

Then a group of demons came.

Then another.

And another.

Each time they were able to use what they'd salvaged from Father Perlich's car to fight them off in relatively short order, leaving the rest of the people in the town they called home in the dark. However both of them knew that it was only a matter of time until their store of demon killing tools ran out or became too few to deal with the number set against them. However, in an effort to ease his wife's concern, he chose to begin to seek other avenues of solving their dilemma besides what they'd… inherited from the instigators of their flight from the church that terrible night.

He'd known from the beginning that the protections of God the Almighty were outside of their reach after what he'd done, so instead he'd sought out the pagan gods of old. By his logic if demons truly existed, perhaps other beings of myth and legend also existed as well. If so he could plead with one of them to extend their protection over him and his family. It was not easy in the beginning since he was more familiar with Holy Scripture than genuine texts on the occult and the gods of old. Nevertheless, with a scrutinizing eye and some trials, he gradually developed the ability to discern the works of fiction from the genuine articles.

It had even been fun at times learning ancient languages and deciphering ancient puzzles.

However it soon became clear to him after four failed attempts at casting a spell of protection upon his property that something was amiss. He'd then contacted the dealer who'd sold him the book, hoping that the man would know why the spell had failed as well as how to ensure success next time. It was then that the dealer revealed that the pagan gods did not bestow the sort of protections he wished to amateurs. No, it took years of devoted service and prayer to earn a successful casting of the spell.

This had angered him greatly because he'd known that they would not last the years needed with what methods of protection they already had at their disposal.

Thus he'd asked to whom or what could they request such protections without such a long waiting period and the man had given but one answer: demons.

If they performed the correct rituals and showed sufficient subservience, it was likely that they could gain the defenses they desired.

He'd hung up on the man right then, furious at the corner he and his family had been pushed into. Seek help, from demons, the very ones who wished to take his wife from him?! Ludicrous! For a time he'd continued to seek answers from the pagan gods of old, determined to find one that would not be so stingy with their protection, but when Kalina Ann had been injured to the point of needing hospital care desperation and fear forced his hand. In a room with a door that could be locked in the basement he'd begun to seek out the name of a demon which, while powerful, would not necessarily wish for the gateway between the realms to be reopened. From everything he'd learned in his research there existed an order of authority amongst powerful beings dictated by their present circumstances. Some welcomed change since it gave rise to opportunities to gain more power while others preferred to keep things as they were in order to keep from losing what they currently possessed.

He'd been convinced that, if he could find one of the latter and gain protection from that demon, it would be an ideal situation.

Three months later, a few days before Mary's tenth birthday, he'd found the one that seemed to fit the description quite nicely. An ambitious demon but, based on his understanding of demonic politics and hierarchy, the demon would not benefit at all from an opening of the gateway between the demon world and the human world. With this decided he'd began preparations and, once he was ready, made sure to secure the room he was in so that neither his wife nor his daughter would accidentally stumble in during the ritual.

Thus, when the clock had struck midnight, he began the ritual being sure to pronounce the words right and follow the requirements of the ritual to the very letter. When the candles burned twice as hot and crimson smoke streamed up from them to form a cloud overhead he'd known that he'd been successful. From there he'd continued with the usual pleasantries, extolling the demon's power and influence, before finally approaching the topic of his request. He didn't go into any detail with Kalina Ann but at the same time kept to the truth. While there had been some suspicious moments, he'd anticipated those and therefore had been prepared to navigate around them in order to ensure he'd not be taken advantage of. In the end he'd believed that the negotiations had gone swimmingly, with him avoiding the traps meant to weigh the arrangement in the demon's favor while also ensuring that he'd get what he desired.

The priced named by the demon had been steep, his most precious possession, but for the sake of his wife and daughter he'd agreed.

Even years after leaving the service of the church he still thought much like a priest would and had believed at the time that his most precious possession was his soul.

He'd been wrong.

As the demon had built up power to hold up its end of the bargain, a terrible scream of fear and agony had shattered the silence of the night and he'd immediately recognized it as belonging to Kalina Ann. Not being a fool he'd made the connection and demanded that the demon stop what he was doing as it'd not been what they'd agreed to. It was then that the demon had revealed that the most precious possession that'd been offered had not been his soul but the soul of his wife. The demon had then gone on to say that, while it'd been willing to fulfill its obligation of protection, it was hardly the most powerful demon of all. It would not take the chance that one of its brethren would find the woman and destabilize the life it'd made for itself, so the deal had indeed been ideal for it.

Infuriated he'd picked up a bit of 'insurance' he'd procured while gathering the rest of the ritual's ingredients and immediately used it on the mass of smoke representing the demon's presence; a blessed nail from made holy both by the crosses inscribed on it as well as soaking in the consecrated water of the top ten most influential churches in America.

The demon had howled in pain at being introduced to something so contrary to its nature and he'd hoped at the time that it'd have been enough to shatter its hold on Kalina Ann. Instead all it'd done was release an explosion of demonic energy that burned the left side of his face even as he tried to shield himself from it.

He didn't know how long he'd been unconscious but, when he'd woken up, he'd immediately gone to the bedroom he'd shared with his wife, desperate to find out if she was okay. Throwing open the door he'd found her form on the bed, sheets in disarray from thrashing about, staring vacantly at the ceiling with her mouth slightly ajar from the passage of her soul. He'd felt such pain then, such sorrow, with his plans for keeping what he valued most safe from harm doing the exact opposite. From that sorrow soon came a blinding rage at the unfairness of it all, rage that made rational thought impossible, causing him speak ill of his wife and of the demon he'd sought to barter with. He blamed the former for coming into his life and for not being strong enough to resist the demon's power just a little while longer so he could do what needed to be done. He blamed the latter for breaching the terms of their agreement out of selfish self-preservation.

In the end it'd been Mary, come from her room no doubt to see what the yelling was about, that'd dispelled enough of his fury to regain half of his lost composure.

He'd calmly, perhaps a bit coldly, told her that her mother had passed away due to a seizure and so as not to arouse her suspicions, he'd done the best he could to play the role of a grief ridden father comforting his only child. Mary was too young to get involved in the matter and he'd doubted very much that she'd have understood even if he had explained the situation to her.

The mess with the authorities and then giving her a proper funeral had tested his patience but he'd managed just the same. As soon as he was certain that any possible watchers had gone back to their normal daily routine he'd begun his quest with two objectives in mind.

The first objective was to find a means of travelling to where the physical form of the demon resided.

The second objective was to gain enough power so, when he stood face to face with the demon, he would be able to reap his terrible vengeance upon the bastard until he was completely satisfied.

In the five years that followed he devoted almost all his time to accomplishing his two objectives, only taking breaks when he absolutely needed to. Usually this was when he had no choice but to play the role of Mary's father or acquire enough money in order to fund his quest, but he never did more than he needed to. The burning fires of vengeance inside of him would not wait any longer than necessary to get the payback he desired.

It was when Mary was just about to graduate from junior high that matters had become… complicated because Mary broke into his private room. Apparently she'd been feeling neglected and had been determined to find out what he'd been spending so much time working on that was more important than her. Needless to say finding a room with various forms of occult materials and books was pretty incriminating, especially when she'd revealed upon being discovered that she'd overheard his entire rant the night of the ritual. She'd accused him of intentionally sacrificing his own wife and her mother in some selfish bid for demonic power, yelling that she hated him.

Briefly he'd contemplated denying the accusation and explaining the entire situation to her but his vast knowledge of demons stopped him. All the knowledge he'd acquired since that night had made it clear that the power he sought would stain his soul, fracturing it and forever barring him from a peaceful rest when he died. For Mary, the sole remaining thing he had to remind him of Kalina Ann, he could not risk damning her soul as well by involving her in the matter. As a result he'd chosen to play the role of a villain, affirming her accusation, all the while making sure to keep his true intentions to himself.

Within a day she'd left, taking all that she needed so that she'd never have to return.

In a way it'd been a relief that she would no longer be near him and potentially be in danger but it also made the years that followed lonely. All that'd kept him going had been his memories of better times and the absolute belief that vengeance would one day be his. Revenge was so all consuming to him that he hadn't given any thought to what would happen to him after he'd gained retribution for the loss of his wife.

Now, though, after all the time that'd passed, he'd revised his plans a little.

He would still gain great power and he would still get his revenge against the demon who'd crossed him so long ago but, once that was done, he would go on to a much larger goal.

He would become the God of this world since, in his mind, the Almighty that he'd prayed faithfully to for so long was either dead or cared nothing for his mortal children. How else could one explain the wrongs committed against him and Kalina Ann? The injustices that had been perpetrated against them! He had lived his life according to the teachings of the Almighty, Kalina Ann had been a kind soul who'd never done a malicious thing in her entire life, but both of them had suffered for things that were not their fault. Therefore, if the Almighty would not use his power to protect two good people such as them, then he would gain the power of a god and take up the responsibilities the ruler of heaven had ignored for so long.

Temen-ni-gru was his big power play.

Throughout his studies of sources of supernatural power he'd focused entirely on those that did not require any aid from supernatural beings but could be acquired by whoever laid their hands on it first. Never again would he trust another being of power to give him what he wanted! By all the research he'd conducted, all he needed was to bring the tower back to life and, once the gateway was open, venture into limbo to claim Sparda's power. If the scrolls he'd read were truthful then the sword it was sealed in would not care who claimed the demonic energy and the power of the most powerful demon swordsman in Hell would be great indeed.

More than enough to claim dominion over the Earth and make things the way they were supposed to be.

To that end he'd laid a trail of bread crumbs at Vergil's feet to lure him there so he could spin the tale of Temen-ni-gru before him and convince the son of Sparda to let him come along as a loyal 'servant'. He already knew that Dante, by mere chance, currently lived in the city beneath which the tower was sealed, so ensuring his involvement would not be difficult. As for the final guest at the party he intended to throw, he knew all he would need to do would be to leak his name and description to the freelance demon hunting crowd and the information would find its way to HER.

However there was still an element of chance to his plan that acted like a splinter of irritation beneath his skin.

His entire stratagem was to guide the three to the final level so that they'd arrive at more or less the same time. Then they would fight, using up the last of their remaining strength so that he could step onto the stage, best all of them and claim the final prize on his own. His current form would guide Vergil while another one would ensure that Dante kept pace with his twin brother and, with the two half-breeds killing the majority of the tower's residents, SHE would have an easy time following. However even he did not know all of the dangers that lingered within the tower, so it was feasible that one of them might very well succeed in killing one of his key players.

That could not be permitted.

However hiring one or more people to ensure that the three arrived where they needed to be might well make them suspicious enough to derail his plans somewhat. All he needed was for two sons of Sparda and the direct descendant of the priestess who worked with the Devil Knight to seal Temen-ni-gru to make it to the final chamber. The mixing of their blood as well the presence of the reunified mystic amulet would undo the final seal on the tower, opening the gateway but if even one was missing it would all be for naught.

 _Then what I need is a spare,_ he thought as a contingency plan began to form within his mind. _And as luck would have it, I know where I can find one such spare._

 _ **Sunnydale, California**_

 _ **January 26**_ _ **th**_ _ **, 1999**_

 _ **Evening, Xander's POV**_

 _I can't believe he folded!_ he thought as he walked away from the school.

Even though he'd been driven by the desire to save his friends and prevent the Hellmouth from being opened up, there had always been the undercurrent of fear in his body. Rooted in years of his father's abuse, he had never quite had the courage to tackle something like O'Toole and his bunch on his own. As much as he hated the others for treating him like some useless burden, he couldn't dispute that even with the echo of Soldier Boy in his head he was a poor opponent for anything stronger than a fledgling vampire. But when O'Toole had bullied him into being the driver for his zombie gang, those same 'friends' of his refused to give him the time of day. He'd tried to pass on the knowledge of what the Z-Boys were up to them but they'd just brushed him off before making tracks, so he'd been left with no other choice but to tackle the matter himself.

He'd mostly just been reacting to things as they'd happened and doing whatever seemed to be the right thing to do at the time.

He'd managed to pull it off and BOY wasn't it a boost to the old self-esteem!

Now he was on his way home and in such a good mood that even if Tony was up and about in his usual drunken rage, he'd still smile.

Well, maybe not. If he smiled that might just piss off Tony even more and it'd be pretty hard to smile with a broken jaw.

As he walked down the street he marveled at what he'd managed to accomplish a short while ago because to him it proved that, while he might not physically have what it takes to fight the good fight, he definitely had it mentally. After all there was no way that someone who'd managed to bluff O'Toole into disarming the bomb so close to detonation and save Faith from some she-demons could not have what it took to fight the darkness. As for the physical side of things, it wasn't that he didn't want to learn how to fight but rather that there were so few options for doing so. Actually, only one that'd probably be effective and Giles was busy enough as it was keeping up the act of a high school librarian and doing his job as Buffy's Watcher. Some people might say that G-man should MAKE time for someone like him since it was the responsible thing to do but personally he was a little more understanding. Giles couldn't train him during school hours, obviously, since that'd get the troll Snyder's attention and that was something no one wanted. As for the evening and part of the night, that was also out since those times were devoted to solving the latest demony hijinks or training Buffy. All the rest of the time would be for sleeping and he was the last person who'd deny anyone a good night's sleep.

Besides, the Watcher's knowledge and training methods were geared towards a Slayer using them in a fight not a human being. While a Slayer might be able to slice a demon into sushi without trouble, an ordinary human being would have just a LITTLE bit of trouble without superhuman speed and strength to back them up.

Without Giles there weren't any other teachers in Sunnydale who could instruct him in what he wanted to know. Sure, there was the odd boxing club or karate school but they were all focused on teaching the sport version of their disciplines rather than something that could be used in actual combat. Also most of the things that Buffy and Faith fought would kill him before he could land a single blow or laugh in his face if he did manage a lucky strike. Guns would solve many of the issues of fighting in close but not only were some of the demons too fast to get a bead on but shooting anything would bring the local P.D. down on his head. While they might as well not exist when it came to protecting people, they were very good at pouncing on anyone who rocked the boat or showed them for the cowards they were. There was also the fact that guns didn't work on many demons often, just annoying them into choosing to kill you slowly rather than immediately.

Then there was the fact that he was still too young to own a gun legally, assuming he could even scrounge the money up to buy one along with ammunition.

So he was stuck making do with what he had and hoping that it'd be enough.

Walking down the sidewalk whistling a jaunty tune, he realized too late that he should've paid more attention to his surroundings. Out of nowhere a magic circle flared to life around him with a radius of about fifteen feet and it made him wonder why he hadn't noticed it sooner. He was pretty sure he would've noticed it since chalk, ink or whatever else someone would use to draw a magic circle would stand out pretty good against the sidewalk or the street. Nevertheless he was now in the center of one and it was glowing brighter by the second, telling him it would soon fulfill the purpose for which it was created. With fear and a desire to live he sprinted for the outside of the circle to escape but, just was he was steps away, the circle shot upwards, blinding him completely.

Then he hit something hard face first, causing him to fall backwards to the ground.

"Ow! What the hell?" he muttered even as he sat up rubbing his sore nose as he did so.

Looking, he was shocked to find that he was no longer on the streets of Sunnydale but rather some sort of stone hallway that looked like it belonged in the lower levels of a castle. Standing up, he looked and unfortunately there were no windows or anything else besides stone walls and torches placed about a foot shy of the ceiling so he had no idea where he was. Still, he could work out the logic well enough to understand that the magic circle he'd gotten caught in must've been a teleportation circle of some kind. As for where it'd sent him, he had to figure it was either the basement of someplace in Sunnydale or somewhere else decidedly far away from California. However there was but one question that needed answering, why had he been brought here? He knew that he hadn't done anything remarkable enough to warrant some mage singling him out, he was just support-o guy for the Slayer, so either he was hostage material or just a random catch of the day.

 _Probably dumb luck,_ he thought as he got up off the floor. _It's the only kind of luck I get these days._

Still, he had just survived a stare down with a bomb AND fought alongside a Slayer for over two years, so he'd be damned if he'd just sit there and let someone use him however they wanted. Picking a direction at random he started walking and he kept his eyes open this time for even the slightest sign of the occult or demonic. There was no way that he'd be able to live it down if he wound up stumbling into something a second time, even if he'd be the only one who knew. Still, in this unknown place he'd definitely prefer some sort of weapon to protect himself with rather than his own two hands. This place absolutely screamed demon hangout and he wasn't something as stupid a Slayer, so he'd only get killed trying to fight them with punches or kicks. That being said, grabbing the first thing to catch his eye would be stupid since there was no telling what hidden features might be found in a weapon stored in a place like this. He'd look for something old and decrepit since that'd imply that whoever owned this place didn't consider it valuable enough to maintain. Of course he would make sure that it was in good enough a condition that it'd hold up in a fight at least until he made it into the open air. After that he'd make for the closest piece of civilization, all the while thinking up a way to ask Giles to send him enough money to get back to Sunnydale.

A way that preferably wouldn't get him laughed at, lectured or give them even more reasons to push him out of the Slaying gig.

It was a little while later that he came to an old looking metal door that probably hadn't been washed or otherwise maintained for at least a decade but, as he turned the handle, he found it still worked.

There was something to be said for the old ways of making things since this door had clearly stood the test of time.

On the other side of the door he found a rather spacious room that looked relatively empty except for a single pillar in the center, upon which rested twin sheathed scimitars, a belt included. From where he stood they looked to be fairly well made but had a design that made him think that the craftsman was aiming for something more Hollywood than historical. He'd seen enough swords in Giles' arsenal to know that scimitars were usually no wider than say a katana blade from hilt guard to tip. These clearly followed the design commonly shown in various movies such as the swordsman who challenged Indiana Jones to a duel without taking into consideration an invention called a 'handgun'.

Was he supposed to take them? Or were they a trap meant to lure him in?

 _I suppose I could just go back the way I came and go in the other direction,_ he thought as he turned around to do just that…

…Only to find that instead of a hallway the path behind him had somehow gotten turned into a small room with no visible way out other than forward.

 _Guess someone doesn't want me to give into any second thoughts,_ he thought as he stepped through the door, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

As he figured would happen the door closed behind him without any assistance on his part and, with a sound that could not be considered natural, he knew the doorway he'd come through was now gone. As he approached the pillar on which the weapons rested he wondered if this was some sort of test or if he was being used as a sacrificial lab rat so that someone else could acquire something. He didn't know for certain but, with his lack of experience and knowledge, the odds were good that it was the latter.

Because, really… HIM? AND TESTS? Not the best of relationships without Willow doing a heap of studying with him, cracking the proverbial whip if he slacked off.

Upon reaching the pillar he noticed some small writing on the sheaths but it wasn't in a language he'd seen during his time helping with the research and definitely not English. For a moment he pondered them but then shrugged and picked up the weapons, wrapping the belt around his waist. There was no point to him trying to figure them out since he wasn't a book nerd like Giles or Willow, so he'd shelve the issue for the time being and focus on getting out of wherever he was.

Looking for another way out of the room he was disappointed to find none and that meant that he'd likely have to use the new weapons he'd acquired in some fashion before one would appear. He didn't know what that something would be but, as luck would have it, he didn't have to wait long to find out. One after another dark clouds blacker than anything that could be created naturally manifested on the stone floor around him, each not much bigger than a basketball. Worried about what might come out he gripped one of the scimitars by the hilt before pulling on it to release it from its sheath… only to find that it wouldn't budge.

"Huh?" he said even as he tried harder to pull the weapon free to no effect.

He made three more attempts to pull the weapon free, even going as far as to give the other one a try, only to find it being just as stubborn as the first one he tried.

"What the fuck?! What's the point of giving me weapons if I can't even get them out of the sheathes!?" he exclaimed even as he watched thin claw tipped hands began to emerge from the clouds.

As the beings the hands belonged to fully emerged from the clouds, he was a little relieved to see that they weren't much bigger than babies in size and even their claws were only the size of rice grains. All in all he figured that, unless they had some wicked ability, he could probably handle them with his own fists easily enough. Then he noticed that the clouds weren't vanishing once the little evil baby things finished clawing their way out and, to his surprise, more were coming through. It took him a second to realize that whoever had set this up was going for the quantity over quality approach and that he might just be in a bit of a pickle. Deciding to take the initiative he charged the nearest one… and just barely managed to dodge when it belched a small ball of flame at him. It moved at the sort of speed one would expect during a game of dodge ball, meaning he could dodge it if he was careful and quick enough but, given the number of demon babies popping up…

Yeah, 'what the fuck' pretty much described his current predicament.

Still, he probably wouldn't be able to leave this chamber unless he defeated them all and he doubted that these demons were going to just leave him be if he left them alone, so fighting was the only option. Being ready to dodge he resumed his advance towards his initial target and, once he was close enough, he performed a quick feint before field goal kicking it with his right foot. It proved successful and the foul creature was sent flying into the nearest wall, exploding into black mist upon impact. Not the reaction he expected, that being for it to slump to the ground, but it at least meant he wouldn't have to worry about a defeated foe rising up to stab him in the back.

After that initial victory things got pretty hectic since the demonies wouldn't let him fight them one at time, but rather in groups. It made sense since with their small sizes and limited attack options they wouldn't do very well if they tried to handle prey solo. Fortunately for him a lot of the jocks who got knocked out of dodge ball early had an annoying habit of targeting the social outcasts still in the game. Worst of all was when the gym teacher was in a bad mood and added more than one ball to the mix, sometimes going all the way up to four at the same time. As a result he only got tagged by the mini-devils when they came at him in groups larger than four but, since their claws weren't all that big, it hurt more than did damage.

Still, he'd heard the phrase 'death by a thousand bites' often enough to know that even if each individual wound wasn't anything to worry about, the blood loss from several at the same time would cause problems sooner rather than later. The more blood he lost, the harder it would be to move and if he lost too much he'd lose the ability to fight the tiny terrors and it'd be all over for him. It'd be another thing entirely if he could use the scimitars to extend his reach and keep them at a distance but since that wasn't possible he'd have to make due.

After a while he stopped consciously thinking about what he was doing and just reacted, instinct and his accumulated experience fighting them dictating his actions. Probably the only reason that this was working out well was because he was subconsciously tapping into his other instincts. Whatever the reason as long as it kept him alive that was the important thing.

In the end he finished off the last of the mini-demons but was left moderately out of breath, even as he kept his reflexes on edge for any more surprises.

All that happened though was that a door appeared on the opposite side of the room than the one he'd come through so, with only slightly less wariness, he walked towards it. The wounds he'd received from the mini-demons hurt but it wasn't anything he couldn't work through and hopefully he'd be out of this place soon enough to get them treated. He didn't think that they'd need stiches but they'd definitely need to be bandaged up if they were to heal properly. Pulling the door open, he found himself beholding another long hallway of stone lit only by the torches on the wall a foot or so below the ceiling. With a sigh he passed through the door and proceeded down the hallway, hoping that there wouldn't be too many more of these tests.

If every single one of them wound up leading to a room with a weapon he couldn't use against the demons that appeared soon after… it'd be a test of endurance he might well lose.

 _I hope someone's having a good time from all of this, 'cause I'm definitely not._

 _ **The Central Chamber**_

 _ **Arkham's POV**_

 _Hmmm…_ _Praeteritum and Mellontikós refused to be drawn,_ he thought as he watched Alexander Harris proceed to the next test chamber. _I suppose it's understandable. They are Devil Arms, after all, and in most cases such weapons will only deign to serve those who prove their strength._

While he had been somewhat optimistic in the beginning that the young man's survival atop the most active Hellmouth in North America would prove to be enough, it looked as though more was needed. True, the vermin that he'd enchanted to appear in the room were weaklings that were often more than enough to deal with ordinary humans, so defeating them did win the young man a measure of respect. Then again fighting for so long alongside the Slayer without dying did imply a degree of strength and resourcefulness since most new demon hunters rarely lasted six months, never mind over two years. Still, the next two rooms would truly test the lad's mettle and prove once and for all if what he suspected was true.

Ever since he'd begun looking for a suitable substitute for one of the Sons of Sparda he'd had trouble finding a close relation in the human world. Naturally he'd started with relatives of the mother, Eva, starting with her immediate family and then branching outwards to find a suitable match. While it might be the case that it was the devil half of their heritage that was needed to breathe new life into Temen-ni-gru, he wasn't about to discount the possibility of their human sides playing a role. As it turned out it was only just before he'd received word that Vergil was close by that he found a likely candidate. While the bloodline connection to Eva was not as strong as he would've liked when he'd used a sensory stone in the young man's presence, it had reacted in a way that could not be dismissed. It implied that the lad had a strength to him and that the necessary genetic markers were present, so he'd cast a strong yet subtle monitoring spell on the teenager. It wouldn't be detected by the Watcher and he doubted it would interest Richard Wilkins enough to warrant more than a casual monitoring of his activities.

Once he'd concluded his discussion with Vergil he'd immediately gone to Sunnydale and acquired his potential replacement but there'd been one final thing that'd needed doing.

He needed to find out just how much work he'd have to do in order to make the young man into a Son of Sparda and a potential opponent for the genuine articles should things become problematic. As such he'd transported Xander via arcane circle to an obstacle course of sorts where he'd find both the tools he had prepared for him and foes to see how strong his specimen truly was. This first test was relatively easy so it was little surprise that the Californian had managed to defeat his foes, but the fact that the Devil Arms had refused to be used was troublesome.

 _Perhaps if he succeeds in passing the second test it'd be enough to at least allow him to use them as ordinary weapons,_ he thought as he watched the young man proceed down the hallway. _If not then perhaps the ranged Devil Arm I placed there will be more cooperative._

He did, of course, want to ensure that his crafted replacement had all he needed in order to successfully counter his 'older siblings', after all.

 _ **Xander's POV**_

 _Well this looks a little more promising,_ he thought as he entered the next room.

What was more promising? On a small wooden table in the center of the room there rested not a bladeed weapon but rather something decidedly more current. Two revolves that looked to be of the same make and, judging by the configuration of the holsters, they were shoulder holsters rather than ones worn on the hip. Much like before there was no other door in the room other than the one he'd come through and, when a familiar sound reached his ears, he knew the door he'd passed through had vanished. With a sigh at the dramatics of what he was being put through he walked up to the table before taking a closer look at the new weapon he'd been presented with. He couldn't see much of the revolvers due to the holsters but the barrel length definitely wasn't short, but neither was it so long that pulling the firearm from the holster would prove troublesome.

Deciding to try to pull at least one of the revolvers out before strapping it on, hoping that by doing so he could at least do so before his 'opponents' made an appearance, he reached out and gripped the top revolver, pulling on it. Much to his relief the firearm left its holster without any unexpected resistance or issues, so that was one thing the gun had over the twin scimitars strapped to his waist. Looking at the gun his mind instantly made a connection making him smile with recognition since he knew what model revolver he was holding.

The Smith and Wesson model twenty-nine, or, more precisely, the forty-four variant made famous in one of the manliest movies ever.

It wasn't a precise copy since the one he held had a pronounced gold color that didn't look like it'd been painted on or just used as a coating, but rather as if the gun was made of a gold-like metal. Also, instead of having the usual engravings denoting Smith and Wesson as the manufacturer, along with the specific model written into the metal elsewhere, the only thing he could find was a single symbol between the grip and the cylinder. At first he thought it was a human skull but he could faintly make out little horns poking out of it, though they were hard to make out with the circle surrounding it. There was also some decorative engraving along the barrel of the weapon and on the grip that definitely wouldn't have been used by a reputable company. It looked more like something from a movie that was trying to mix modern firearms with a story about the occult and demon hunting.

Still, he wasn't getting a bad vibe from the gun so he didn't think it had any mojo in it, plus he was pretty sure he'd have been hit with something already if there was any bad juju attached to it. Putting it back into its holster he then put the shoulder holster on, making sure it was secure but did not interfere with his arms' range of movement. It was only after he finished that he realized that he hadn't seen any ammunition other than what was in the cylinder. With six shots per revolver that meant that if there were any more than twelve opponents for this room he'd be screwed. If things followed the usual pattern then the enemies in this room would be a few levels above the demon babies he'd faced in the first one. While he might still be able to deal with them using hand-to-hand, he'd likely get hurt worse than before, as well making getting to civilization harder.

Not a minute after he'd finished securing the holster to his body five clouds of darkest blackness appeared on the floor but instead of larger versions of what he'd fought earlier a new threat emerged. First was a hand with fingers that were tipped with claws that could better be described as spearheads in his opinion, then came an arm covered in green scales. It was only then that a lizard's head clad in an actual metal helmet appeared before fully emerging from the darkness to show him what he was up against. Humanoid lizard demons with armor to protect their heads and a shield in one hand to protect, while the other hand was no doubt offensive in nature.

 _Best test just how good those shields are._ He pulled a single revolver from the holster. _If they can hold up to a shot from this baby then I'm going to have to time my shots properly._

Taking proper aim he pulled the trigger but much to his surprise and dismay the recoil was so powerful he could feel it all the way up to his shoulder. Still, the shot flew true and impacted on the shield held by one of the lizard demons, but instead of piercing it all the projectile did was dent it moderately. Depending on how good their reaction time was and how smart they were, it meant that getting a hit on flesh was not going to be easy. Still, the recoil wasn't so bad that he had to worry about breaking bones or tearing muscle like the stereotype most people had about powerful handguns. Okay, maybe he was exaggerating the whole bone breaking and muscles tearing but most people did think that unless you were Mister Muscles trying to fire a gun like the twenty-nine was impossible. Still, he was sure that he could bear it so long as he went extra far in bracing himself before each shot and didn't keep his arms locked in place.

 _Just grip with both hands and let your arms fly up a bit to take the recoil,_ he thought as he waited to see what the lizard men demons could do.

If they just moved like normal people he could probably handle it… but since when have inhuman demons ever moved at human level speeds? Deciding to take the initiative he dashed to the left, intent on getting around the shields so he could strike at the less difficult flesh behind them. Unfortunately the lizard men took this to mean the fight had begun and went on the offensive themselves, two charging him head on and the remaining three… firing the claws in their free hands at him like harpoons!? Since when did that make sense?! In any case he dove into a roll and brought himself back up into a kneeling firing position, firing off a shot at the exposed side of the demons. However instead of hitting the body he wound up mangling the thing's shield arm as the demon tried to bring it into position in time. He had only a moment to feel good about that before the two that wanted to get up close and personal got a little too close for comfort.

Diving into a roll just as clawed hands came down from above, looking like it would've dug into his flesh pretty deeply if it'd managed to connect. Bringing his revolver up once he came to a stop, he tried to take aim at the one that'd tried to attack him but, after hearing a disturbing sound that caused his danger sense to spike, he used his feet to push backwards just before a trio of projectile claws flew by.

 _Then can regrow them that fast?!_ _NOT GOOD!_

He'd thought that even with a regenerative ability it'd take at least five to ten minutes before they'd grow back but now it looked like a minute was the most he could hope for. Bringing the revolver up one handed, he took aim at the one that'd just shot at him and pulled the trigger. More by luck than skill thanks to the fact that he hadn't taken up a proper two handed grip, the shot managed to hit the shoulder of the arm that'd fired at him, causing it to go limp at the demon's side. Coming to a stop he quickly pulled the other revolved from its holster and aimed it the way he'd come before opening fire. While the Soldier Boy in him insisted on the proper grip he realized now that he didn't have the luxury of observing that rule given his current predicament. With threats at both ranges to worry about he couldn't afford to use a two handed grip or fire in only one direction at a time. It would take too long to adjust the aim of a single gun to this many targets with only a window of a few seconds to take the shot. By using two revolvers he'd cut the adjustment time in half and hopefully this would be enough for him to bring down these demons before he received a serious wound.

Keeping himself on the move so that the lizard men demons couldn't gang up on him, he did his best to adapt to any possible reduction in accuracy firing one handed might cause while also going for vital areas. By his count he'd fired three shots so far, meaning he had a total of nine shots remaining and, given that there were five of them, that meant he could only afford to waste four shots before the rest absolutely had to kill his foes.

Not the most ideal of circumstances and definitely not the infinite ammo you usually saw in Hollywood movies that had themes similar to his current predicament. Still, he had no choice but to give it his best and hope that it was enough.

The lizard demons at least looked a little more careful with their approach than before since he'd managed to injure some of them. Still he'd have to work to make all nine bullets he had left bring about the results he wanted, so he went to work. When your foe decided to be cautious it was a good time to be reckless as contradictory as that might sound. Their wariness would cause them to hesitate as they made up their minds and those few seconds could be all you need in order to turn things around. Charging in headfirst towards the nearest demon, he could see it was surprised at this bold action and, by the time he got within swiping distance, it was only just preparing to attack him. Bringing up one of the revolvers, he angled it so that it would get under its guard while simultaneously bringing the other up in the general direction of the next closest demon. The second he believed both were in place he pulled the triggers, causing one bullet to fire diagonally upwards, hopefully hitting some vital organs while the other would discourage taking advantage of his divided attention.

"RIAGH!" cried the demon he'd intended on hitting as the bullet tore through its body.

He didn't have time immediately to examine his work visually since his delaying tactic only worked on one of the five, but once he'd dove, rolled and darted to a temporarily safe distance he turned back. With a small grin he watched as the one he'd managed to nail in the body dropped to its knees, clutching the bleeding wound before keeling over completely to the ground. While he couldn't be completely certain that it was dead, he was fairly certain that it wouldn't be getting up again any time soon, freeing him up to deal with the others.

Looking about he spotted the one whose arm he'd managed to mangle and decided that would make a suitable number two target, since he'd only need to get to the side of the useless arm to score his second kill of the night. Moving towards it he still kept his senses peripherally on the other three, knowing that they'd likely want to join the party either by slashing him or impaling him. Diving under a barrage of spearhead claws and using a one-two side step on another, he was soon within range of his target. It looked like it was trying to bring its one good arm up to shoot his claws at him but its wound was making moving fast a bit difficult. As soon as he got into prime position he brought the second revolver into position, this one looking like it'd either been coated in silver or made of it, before squeezing the trigger.

This time the shot had a much more favorable resolution than the first, successfully managing to go straight through the monster's chest roughly where the human heart would be. However, unlike the small bullet wound he'd been expecting, what appeared in the demon's chest was something more akin to what you'd get from pipe impalement.

Minus the pipe, of course, but he couldn't fault the results though.

With a gaping hole where its heart had possibly been, the demon dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.

 _And where there were five now there are three,_ he thought, proud of the fact that he'd managed to evade getting hurt thus far yet had taken down two of his foes thus far.

Too bad that even with the numbers reduced to three on one he was still in sticky spot.

The others looked to be rather angry with him for killing two of their allies but this could work to his favor since angry foes tended to get careless. Deciding to have another go at getting into their midst, he moved forward only to find himself facing a hailstorm of launched claws, fifteen in total. Fortunately for him rolling to the side to get clear of their target area saved him from that and, with their claws temporarily gone, all he had to worry about was getting hammered to death with their shields.

On a whim he decided to try an unusual tactic and set up two of the demons to hit each other rather than him. All he needed to do was make sure that they were so mad at him that being careful was the last thing on their minds.

 _Might as well go with my strengths,_ he thought. "Well, that's two piece of luggage ready to go. Wanna make it a set of five?"

Judging by the screeches of fury he got as a response, he felt it was safe to say that they were quite pissed at how disrespectful he was being. At a speed he'd usually only witnessed with the older vampires they came at him and he found himself wondering if he'd maybe gone a step too far. Even if that were so, though, it was hardly like he could offer them an apology and expect them to calm down. Instead of wasting energy on regret and self-recrimination, he pooled it all into evading the assaults sent his way while waiting for the right moment to end it all. Sadly, unlike his previous exchanges, he was unable to keep taking hits and, while it wasn't with claws, the lizard men struck with a strength that did not match their slim arms. It wasn't much worse than getting hit by a newly risen vampire but it still wasn't pleasant or easy to recover from. Nevertheless, for every five blows they sent his way only two could qualify as direct hits while the rest were grazing blows.

 _Gotta sew this up._ Painful bruises were created with every blow, direct or grazing. _Otherwise I'm not going to be able to even bring my arms up, never mind shoot anything._

Pushing himself he forced his body to move faster, for his reflexes to react to their attacks better and for an opportunity to end the fighting to appear. He'd heard the saying that all good things came to those who waited but he wasn't sure how long he could just take the hits believing that a chance would appear.

It soon became apparent that Lady Luck wasn't through with him just yet because before his very eyes the three remaining lizard men demons lined up almost perfectly. Almost immediately he knew that THIS was his moment to strike, so he brought both revolvers to bear, pulling the triggers. Even though it put strain on his arms he kept firing, adjusting his aim with each shot for maximum coverage over each target with the rounds he had left. He couldn't afford to keep soaking up damage like he was and with this opportunity to end it all before he became unable to walk. His instinct to seize the opportunity presented before him paid off and each of the remaining demons got two bullets each. One even laughably managed to land square between the eyes! Wherever they landed, though, the result was the same as the three demons dropped to the ground dead, covering the floor around their bodies with blood.

As the danger passed he realized that he was breathing heavily and that his arms were sore enough that willpower was what was keeping them aimed in the direction of the demons. However, with the tension of battle and the confirmation that the threats to his life had been killed, all the accumulated damage he'd received hit him like a freight train. Bruises, cuts, muscle strain and many other things caused him to drop to one knee as his body tried to cope with the workout it'd been given. Even with the times he'd gone off with Buffy on patrol or helped her fight the latest big bad of the week, he'd never gotten so sore. Looking at the revolvers in his hands, he saw that every chamber of each cylinder was empty, confirming that he'd used up all his bullets. However, just as he was about to put them back in their holsters, something happened that he had not anticipated as the blood of the demons was drawn off the floor towards the revolvers. Up through the business end of the barrels the blood went even as the cylinder spun on its own and before his eyes the liquid began to take the shape of bullets before turning into real ones with a flash of crimson light. With every turn of the cylinder this continued to happen until both revolvers were fully loaded and ready to kill demon scum.

"Shit. If I knew they could do that I'd have been a lot freer with the shots," he muttered even as he slid both guns into their holsters, deciding to ignore the magical bullshit that he'd just seen.

It took a little more than five minutes he reckoned before the soreness went away enough for him to stand again. Once he was on his feet he turned just in time to see the door that would take him out of the chamber appear. For a moment he didn't want to go through as he was certain that he would only find another chamber, another weapon and even more dangerous demons to fight. In the shape he was in, unless it was a minigun with his back to the wall and the foes were particularly dumb, he was unlikely to win.

Still… remaining in the room, never to see the sky again, never to see his friends again, was a future he could not abide.

He walked towards the door, towards the fight to defy the abomination called Fate.


	2. One person's failure is anothers success

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted material contained herein. They are the rightful property of their associated creator and/or companies. I make no profit from this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this at any point in the future. I write because it's fun and because there are those who enjoy reading my work. Therefore I would appreciate it if no legal action was taken against me. I can promise you that you wouldn't get even a fifth of your legal fees back from me.

 _ **Arkham's POV**_

 _I think it would be best to end the testing here,_ he thought as he activated the spell that would render his test subject unconscious. _The ritual to merge the essence of Sparda with him will be physically taxing to begin with. If Alexander Harris is too badly injured, he will not survive and this will all have been a colossal waste of time._

Besides which, he was a little pressed for time since it would at best be another day or so before Vergil would likely grow testy and might choose to 'check up on him'. Given how the Son of Sparda carried himself, it would likely offend him greatly to learn that a 'subordinate' was attempting to create a 'sibling' for him as a substitute should Dante prove unable to survive Temen-ni-gru. The ritual itself to accomplish the biological alterations would take time as well, leaving him with less than an hour to appear before his 'master'.

With a simple incantation and a wave of his hand the unconscious form of one Alexander Harris appeared before him, looking like he'd just survived a street brawl with the local chapter of a biker gang famous for it. None of the wounds were serious enough to be life threatening but just the same he cast a simple healing spell that would tend to the simpler ones while invigorating the body a bit. It was considered basic mage First Aid so it wasn't particularly powerful but it'd be enough to tilt the odds a little bit further in his favor. Once that was done a simple levitation spell allowed him to make the unconscious form follow him as he left the underground tomb he'd used for the test. It had been a simple matter to locate a tomb belonging to a former mage that was likely to have in it several spells meant to ensnare and then kill intruders. With a bit of manipulation he was able to force Harris down a path of his choosing to where he'd placed the Devil Arms he'd acquired for his Son of Sparda. Once he'd learned enough about what he had to work with in terms of fighting potential, he knew what he would have to alter before he'd be satisfied with his specimen.

From what he saw there was good raw potential present but not enough experience to take full advantage of it. If the lad survived ten years or more perhaps then his potential would reach full bloom but at the moment it could only be seen by those with the eyes to see it.

 _Not that I will need to wait that long,_ he thought as he proceeded to his destination. _Not with the ritual._

Indeed, as he walked past the demolished stone golem that had initially sought to deny him entrance to the tomb that was his current destination, it'd coincidentally happened not too long before he'd first heard of Vergil investigating the location of his father's demonic power. The stone construct had been something of a bother when it'd reacted to his presence. Whoever had made it had imbued it with a high degree of resistance to both magic as well as blunt force trauma, so defeating it had not been easy but fortunately his years of devotion to the occult had seen him through to victory. A magical construct being given such resistance's required something to act as a buffer between the two opposing natures. Knowing that, all he'd needed to do was deduce what that buffer was and how to remove it from play and the golem fell apart all on its own.

He had come across other formidable defenses but then what else could one expect from the great tomb of the Dark Knight Sparda?

Passing through the metal doors that'd been designed to hold up against something with the strength of a stampeding elephant, he descended into the lower levels. One after another he went past barriers, spells and creatures who'd been placed there to keep all but those HE had permitted from reaching the main chamber in the lowest level. Naturally he hadn't done anything so foolish such as try to overcome all the obstacles himself since trying to do so would likely wind up killing him. Instead, when the threat became too worrying, he employed both humans as well as demons to overcome the obstacles he could not without risking his life. Whether it was promising them sizeable payment for their services or letting news reach them of a secret treasure beyond their wildest dreams waiting at the lowest level, he used it all to get a level further closer to her goal.

Now all obstacles were gone, leaving him and his future Son of Sparda replacement with nothing but an uneventful descent to the main chamber of the lowest level.

Upon entering the chamber he beheld the two stone caskets in the center, a simple inscriptions on each to tell others who was inside, when they'd been born, when they'd died and a single statement to act as a testament to who they'd been. In this case, though, the inscriptions were especially important to his plans and would be the linchpin to their complete success.

Sparda Jones

Born March 1st, 1955

Died February 5th, 1979

A Knight in the Service of Justice

Eva Jones

Born May 19th 1958

Died August 9th, 1981

A woman who filled our world with light

With a careful wave of his hand he levitated Alexander Harris over to the top of Sparda's stone casket and set him down. Not taking a moment more to evaluate his work he immediately went to work preparing for the ritual. While the requirements for the ritual did come with celestial alignment requirement, he'd made sure to time the test for Harris so that if the young man passed he'd still have plenty of time to set up. Nevertheless he had a much to do and he refused to fail at something this important or volatile.

Walking over to the northwestern corner of the chamber he picked up the first of the ritual materials that he'd placed there before going to pick up Harris. Like a machine he went through the checklist of tasks that need to be done, he performed each in their proper order precisely as they were described in the books he'd acquired. It'd taken some doing to acquire all the ingredients without giving any nosy parties even the slightest hint at what he intended to use them for. Dante, Sparda, Vergil… they'd all left their mark on the world and, as was the case with any such beings, they had no shortage of enemies.

None of those enemies would approve of yet another thorn in their sides being created.

Every so often he would glance at his watch as well as the magical time piece in the room to ensure he knew precisely how much time he had left before all his efforts came to naught. Ripping off Harris' shirt he began to draw the necessary runes of gift and man and heritage, the hieroglyphs for container and man and the goddess Neith, before ending with the Chinese symbol for fusion as it would have been written two thousand years ago. More odd combinations were drawn on the stone casket, the floor as well as on the specific sections of the wall that corresponded to the four navigational directions. By the time he was done and the hallowed time was upon him, the interior of the chamber could've passed for one of the many graffiti-covered tunnels of the New York subway. Only one well versed in the arcane would be able to comprehend the complexity and the power of each piece of the overall design.

"There. The last piece is in place," he said as he carefully set down the last component well away from where it might accidentally affect things. "And just in time, too. The celestial alignment is just about to reach its peak potency."

Stepping to the location where the conductor was required to stand, he centered his thoughts before sharpening his focus and beginning the ritual. With the seriousness such a venture required he executed the correct gestures and pronounced the words just as they'd have been pronounced when the ritual was conceived. With every verse completed another combination of symbols and lines lit up with power, much like certain sections of a city would light up according to what grid they were on.

Only when the last of what he'd written lit up did crimson energy and mist begin to leak from Sparda's casket, behaving like curious tendrils at first before homing in on Harris' body. All beings of great power saturated their physical forms with their power whether they intended to do so from the beginning or not. Even after death the power remained, albeit faintly, and could be tapped if a sufficiently skilled mage or witch wished to attempt such an act. Depending on the nature of the being and the potency of their power, the lingering might could remain in the body from anywhere from a few months to a few centuries.

In the case of Sparda, the Devil Knight, who had died less than two decades prior, what little power the sealer of Temen-ni-gru hadn't sealed in limbo would still be present in the corpse. Indeed, if he was right, it wouldn't be half faded away for at least a century, if not longer, so to harvest it now would only further increase the odds of him reaching his goal.

With a flaring light of convergence the tendrils made contact with the target area located at the center of Alexander's chest. As predicted the young man lurched up as power both unfamiliar and overwhelming flowed through his body's network of veins but it was far too late for the Californian to do anything. Continuing with the ritual, he drew as much of Sparda's lingering power as he could from the corpse and infused it into Harris' body before moving on to the reconfiguration verses. This was the most delicate part of the ritual because he would literally be rewriting the young man's genetic code in order to make his DNA unequivocally a hybrid between Eva's line and Sparda's own line. Even after thousands of years of arcane development, mages and witches still hadn't perfected a way to alter living beings on a genetic level. Some had come close, sure, but the number of failures they'd had to go through before finally achieving success made sure that they would go to Hell when they died.

However the creator of the ritual that he was using was quite famous for his spell-crafting skills and had made sufficiently impressive achievements that he had no reason to doubt the ritual.

As the last of the reconfiguration verses were spoken he entered the final phase of the ritual in which he would cement the changes into place, resolving all instabilities that cropped up. One of the common problems that often appeared when a magic user attempted to use reconfiguration magic on a genetic level was that the new being would fall out of balance at random. Sometimes it happened on its own while other times the instability cropped up due to some sort of external stimulus, but the end result was the same. Those the magic had been used on were destroyed from the inside out to a variety of different forms of destruction, all of which left a nasty mess to be cleaned up.

That was why he was doing all he could to eliminate those potential problems before they could grow in strength, potentially leading to the ruin of all his efforts.

As if to make true the warning about tempting Fate, instabilities suddenly began to appear faster than he'd anticipated when he'd originally imagined how things would go. Increasing the effort he was putting into eliminating such problems, he went after the ones that seemed to be growing the fastest before moving onto the slower ones. In defiance of his increased diligence the instabilities only increased further, sometimes blossoming into place only a short distance from one that he'd eliminated seconds earlier. Gritting his teeth, he worked harder while trying to deduce why these instabilities were cropping up in the first place so he could tackle the problem at its source rather than be overwhelmed by the symptoms.

It wasn't easy to do both but he had good reason to give it his all.

Sadly it proved to be insufficient and, with Harris' veins turning blood red while the life liquid dribbled out of his eyes, ears, nose and mouth, a death gasp he was all too familiar with was released and his hope for creating a suitable replacement for Dante or Vergil came to an end with an infuriating failure. As the last of the light faded from the markings within the chamber his anger got the better of him, causing him to lash out with blasts of raw magical energy. There was no structure to them, no element, just his emotions given destructive form.

By the time that he'd vented enough of his fury that his composure returned the chamber was a complete mess and it was only through chance that it remained structurally stable.

"Be worthy of your heritage, Sons of Sparda," he growled as he walked out of the chamber. "My plans now depend on it."

 _ **A Higher Realm of Existence**_

"Finally! That nuisance of a mortal is finally out of our hair for good," one spoke with satisfaction as the entire group looked at the scene magically projected in front of them.

"Indeed. His ability to defy probability and compromise our plans threatened the entire landscape for the next hundred years," two said, agreeing with the statement of One. "Damage control will still take four years to complete. Only then will our plans be back on track."

"I gotta admit, I thought this was one helluva gamble," Whistler said from his lower position before his bosses. "Over two decades of work molding Jude Arkham into a pawn just so he'd use Harris in this ritual that was doomed from the beginning."

"To be honest we didn't know in the beginning who the threat was or what species they were. Our seers only informed us that this threat was large enough to render our entire strategy for the next two centuries null and void. Only when Alexander Harris succeeded in thwarting our prophecy involving Slayer Summers and the Master of Aurelius did we know it was him," Three explained, proving that he was one of the approachable members of the group. "From there it was only a matter of adjusting our counter strategy to ensure that the mortal would be the one selected for Arkham's ritual."

"What about the kid's soul? I'm no mage but even I know it's gotta be in pretty rough condition after all that. Where's it headed?" Whistler asked, making the mistake of showing genuine concern.

"Do not think us cruel, Balance Demon!" Two replied sternly. "Despite the trouble he has caused us his soul will be judged like all others before being sent to its destination. At first glance I imagine his soul will only need to spend a decade or two in Purgatory before being admitted into heaven. After all he only spent a little over two years interfering with Slayer Summers' fate, so anything harsher would only be petty."

"And Arkham's plans for Temen-ni-gru? If that thing gets up and running, you can bet a lot of your plans are going to go belly up in a hurry," Whistler said, bringing up the other potential problem.

"Our seers have looked into that matter as well. While Dante is inexperienced and his heritage from his father only partially unlocked, they say there is a high probability that he will Awaken during the confrontation," Three replied, showing that he too was concerned about the gateway. "Given his brother Vergil's attitude and overall personality, it is quite likely that he will dismiss his sibling as a threat to the very end. Running the gauntlet of gatekeepers within the tower will cause Dante's skill with his abilities to increase rapidly. With a bit of luck, by the time of the final confrontation Dante will be more than capable of defeating both Arkham and his brother, Vergil."

"And if luck isn't enough?" Whistler asked, sounding like he didn't approve of the idea of leaving the fate of the world to luck alone.

"We will monitor the entire confrontation to the very end and, if matters become unfavorable, then we will give 'Lady Luck' a helping hand by placing things Dante can use to his advantage along his path." Two replied, like everything was fine and only minor details needing to be resolved.

This appeared to resolve all of Whistler's questions…

…Until something happened that had everyone in the room wonder if complete control was possible even for higher beings.

During the entire discussion, the image being displayed remained that of the main chamber of the lowest level of Sparda's tomb. That was why when someone entered who wasn't Arkham, it piqued their curiosity and, when they saw the face of the newcomer, their curiosity turned into open hostility.

"What is SHE doing there?!" One exclaimed with extreme dislike and confusion in his words.

"Eileen McGlynn!" Two growled, refusing to say the woman's TRUE name.

In Two's mind that name had been stripped from her and destroyed from all official record two thousand years ago for a very good reason. The woman broke the one supreme rule that all higher beings were required to follow and, while the group might bend that rule from time to time, they never broke it like she had two millennia ago. As punishment for her transgression she'd been stripped of her heritage and transformed into a human woman before being placed in the mortal world with only the minimum of resources to create a life to live.

Sadly, while her divine power could be stripped from her, the essence of her soul could not be so easily changed and so Eileen had become one of the few true immortals to walk the Earth. They'd kept track of her for the first half millennia to ensure that she took no action to restore herself to her former power or interfere with their plans, but when nothing happened they ceased direct involvement. Instead they'd placed simple yet effective monitoring spells tuned to her soul on her to alert them at the slightest hint of a serious move.

How they were blindsided like this baffled them almost as much as why she would involve herself in their current plan.

It was only when she walked over to the side of Alexander Harris' corpse that their worry heightened. Worried that the pain in their backside known as Harris might revive, they tried to forcefully summon Eileen to the chamber before she could act but, to their shock, they could not. Looking into the matter, they learned that, due to the lingering remnants of Sparda's power in the air and the forces Arkham had employed in his efforts, they could not create a stable teleportation field. Indeed they couldn't create even an unstable one that would wipe the accursed woman from existence.

"Whistler! Get down there now and stop her!" One ordered with all the authority and seriousness that could be mustered.

"On it!" Whistler replied before flickering out of existence.

It would be close.

The balance demon would have to appear outside the tomb itself and then traverse the various staircases to get to the main chamber but, if he ran and did not get hung up, he would make it. Once there their messenger would be able to utilize a rarely used ability to nullify the special abilities of anyone within his range. That would prevent Eileen from doing whatever it was she intended to do and, just by being there, the energies that were preventing teleportation would be dispelled, allowing them to take direct action.

They would demand an immediate accounting of her intentions and, if they proved to be in conflict with their plans, she would be deposited on the other side of the world in the middle of nowhere.

If they proved to be dangerous to the mortal world at large they would bring her before a tribunal to receive further punishment for her transgressions.

They would make sure she received the harshest punishment they could get away with.

She would be an example to all those like her of the cost of meddling in matters beyond their station.

' _ **Eileen McGlynn's' POV**_

"I don't have much time, my dear scion," she said as she looked down at the damaged body of the young man before her. "I must work quickly before their little errand boy arrives. The obstacles I activated in his path will not hold him back for long. Brace yourself!"

With that she walked between the two caskets and placed her right hand on the surface of Ava Jones' casket while the other was placed above the location of where Alexander's soul was in the closing stages of losing its tethers to his physical body. With focus, will and concentration she drew upon the ghost of the power she once wielded prior to her choice to aid Sparda and his priestess ally two thousand years ago. It was hard, so VERY hard, that each time she'd tried in the past she'd felt no small amount of exhaustion afterwards, but it was needed in this case.

Only the power of an archangel, even a fallen one such as her, could reattach a soul to a physical body and do what Jude Arkham could not.

As the remains of her divine power reached the limits of its ascension she opened her mouth and began to sing the holy hymns that would bring about the results she desired. If she were to step outside her body and observe what was transpiring, she'd likely perceive a barely visible set of wings blossoming from her back. Barely perceivable armor also manifested but it would look as though it was taking all her considerable strength to keep things as they were. As the words of the heavenly hymn unknown to all but a handful of beings whom walked the Earth entered the chorus phase, bright white light faded into existence beneath her hands.

 _Link… established… now is the time… for the awakening,_ she thought, making contact with the part of Alexander that drew Arkham to him and began fuel its ascension.

It would never reach the heights it would've had Fate been kinder but she would have it ascend as high as was possible without doing the young man harm.

Once she'd drawn it fully she then reached into the remains of Eva Jones with her power and pull what she could from her while also summoning the spirit of the blonde woman. The reason that Arkham's plan failed was partially due to the manipulations of THEM and partially because Alexander was not a close enough relation to Eva for the merger to work. Contrary to what some might think, it was not that easy for a Devil and a human to sire children due to the vastly different physiologies. Devils were a species all their own and could not in any way be lumped in with the various species of demon that plagued the planet. It would be like comparing a dinosaur to an alligator; they might look similar but the scale was so different only someone not versed in the facts could make such a comparison without scoffing at the very concept. Therefore, while it was not unheard of for demon breeds to crossbreed with humans provided certain criteria were met, a union between a Devil and a human was almost impossible.

Only the special something that Eva and Alexander possessed made it even remotely possible, with the young man not possessing enough to survive the fusion process.

However in order to employ what she'd drawn from Eva, she needed the consent of the woman's spirit and that could only be acquired by bringing the woman's soul there.

With a faint shimmering of a soul passing through the veil between life and death she beheld the transparent form of Eva Jones, wife to Sparda and mother to twin sons, looking much as she had in life. Unable to speak for fear of losing her grip on the forces she sought to wield, she instead conveyed mentally her plan along with the request for aid. Kind woman that she was, Eva's soul did not hesitate to give her permission to do what she needed to do. With that done she started the bridge portion of the hymn that was both the simplest in structure yet also the hardest to accomplish with what meager divine energy she had left.

However, as she watched, the wounds the young man had accrued began to heal at an accelerated rate of speed impossible for an ordinary human. The crimson veins that'd become so pronounced as a result of Arkham's efforts faded away until unblemished Caucasian skin remained and the blood that'd trickled out of his body flowed back inwards as though time was being reversed. However when she saw the young man's black hair change to purest white, as though a strong wind was blowing away the black ash that'd encased every strand up until then, she knew all would be well.

More and more the bridge proceeded until she could feel the last of the physical and spiritual changes reach their conclusion. In order to seal the changes into place, to make them no more alterable than her own inner nature, she needed to sing the complete the conclusion in its entirety without a single flaw. However her will, focus and strength were beginning to fail her, causing what remaining divine power she had to return from the pit within her from whence it'd come. She fought against this both because she was determined to accomplish what she'd come here to do and because she'd just been notified that Whistler was a mere two obstacles away from the chamber she stood in. If she did not finish the hymn before he arrived, she never would.

 _Do not worry, Asariel,_ came the thoughts of Eva through the link that'd been established. _Through you I know what is at stake and what may transpire if you fail. For the sake of my boys, Dante and Vergil, I will make sure you succeed._

With that the summoned spirit floated towards her in a pose identical to the one that she herself was in until the space the two of the occupied overlapped. With the merger of space she felt her strength double, then triple, as Eva somehow managed to convey the power of her inheritance to her turning the situation around while removing all doubt. With this development she continued the outro of the hymn, the strength of her resolve in every word. Just as the last obstacle came under assault by Whistler the hymn finished and the presence of Eva Jones faded away, likely returning to the afterlife where she belonged. Before the last of her strength left her she cast two spells: the first would clad young Alexander in clothes suitable for what lay ahead for him while the second she enacted a teleportation spell that would send him to one of her safe houses.

To be more specific it was a safe house in the same city that had been built over the ground where Temen-ni-gru had been sealed.

She had travelled the world both for her own gratification and to lend what aid she could to the people who defended the planet against the forces of darkness. Sometimes she had to stay in a single place for a long time, the years ranging from decades to centuries, so rather than perpetually rent an apartment she used her accumulated resources to buy land and build a home for herself. Indeed, in exchange for several important jobs she truly owned the land her homes rested on and didn't need to pay the associated government any money no matter what the form. Given what was sealed below the city she'd sent Alexander to, it only made sense to have a safe house there in case she ever came across evidence of someone attempting to free it.

While it would be nice for something to happen that would stop Vergil and Arkham from undoing even a single seal on Temen-ni-gru, she had to consider the possibility of things going all the way south in the form of the tower being completely unsealed and the gateway opening. With the hymn she used just now, she had forged the best possible warrior to oppose the destructive duo and with this creation the odds were now even.

Dante and Alexander versus Vergil and Arkham.

It should make for a rather interesting confrontation.

"STOP!" Whistler yelled as he charged into the room, looking like he'd just survived a bar fight that was just a little out of his league.

"You're too late, Whistler," she said, unable to keep the fatigue from her voice. "It's done and he's on his way. Better luck next time."

While not as angry as she presumed his bosses were at the moment, the balance demon was still pretty mad though it might've been because of the punishment he'd get after she'd been 'dealt with'. After all, from what she'd heard Whistler's bosses weren't exactly the most understanding of failure even if the agent they sent truly had done the very best that they could to achieve their objectives. Still, the angry demon glaring at her had managed to survive this long in THEIR employ, so she had a feeling that he'd live through this.

"Too bad your luck's run out," Whistler said before the room distorted like a bad acid trip before reforming into a landscape she never thought she'd see again.

And in that room she beheld some beings that she'd HOPED she'd never see again.

"Well, well, the gang's all here!" she said with mock cheer since, despite her almost nonexistent divinity, she recognized each of them.

They'd been the ones who'd been in charge of the prosecution after she'd chosen to leave the heavens to aid Sparda and the Priestess, violating the nonintervention law. It was only her distinguished time as an archangel and the more honorable judge that'd kept her from being wiped from existence as punishment.

"Do you realize what you've DONE!?" the being to the far right asked at full volume and rage.

"Gee, let me think. Have I ruined your plan to kill a young man because he screwed things up for you? Rather petty if you ask me. Have I just given him the means to make sure you won't be able to kill him off very easily in the future? Yep, pretty sure I did that," she replied with a complete lack of respect for the beings in front of her. "And have I just sent said young man to deal with a potential cluster fuck that you set in motion just to bump him off? Yep, I think I know exactly what I've done, too."

"YOU'VE CREATED A NEPHILIM! A NEPHILIM!" yelled the being second from the left. "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT SORT OF TERROR YOU'VE UNLEASHED!?"

"Calm yourself! We need cool heads if we are to fix this mess, not irrational outbursts," the being second from the right said, still sounding angry but more in control. "It appears we made a mistake lifting our gaze from you, Eileen McGlynn. It is clear that your time in the mortal world has driven your mind farther into the grey area between good and evil than I'd originally predicted. You, like the rest of us, know the dangers a living nephilim represents."

"I know why a living nephilim is feared by both the light and the dark," she declared, showing no fear as she spoke. "They are feared because they are capable of tapping into both demonic and angelic power. They are feared because, with those dual powers, they can cross between the human world, the demon world and heaven, bypassing the barriers meant to detect and obstruct the opposing side. They are feared because they possess the potential to slay high ranking members of both sides."

"Then why did you do it? Why did you expend such power and call upon a spirit to create one?" the being second from the right asked, sounding like he wanted to convince her of her mistake. "Even if by some chance he succeeds in your desire to prevent the reopening of the gateway and ending the threat posed by both Vergil and Arkham, the event will announce his existence to all worlds. The best case scenario would be that he will be hunted down and slain by the more reactionary forces before the ambitious ones can take action. However at the opposite end of the spectrum there exists a strong possibility that they will attempt to gain him as an ally or a servant by any means necessary. That will upset the balance that has kept the confrontations between each side small and manageable. As soon as he slays even one high ranking member from either side, it will be enough to inspire the other side to take aggressive action and gain new ground that would've been impossible to otherwise claim."

"It's true that both scenarios could potentially come to pass," she admitted, deciding that she would do the same and try to convince those before her of her point of view. "However there are some, myself included, who believe that the term 'stalemate' is just another word for 'defeat'. You, each of you, are supposed to be generals leading the light towards victory over the darkness. Yet in all the centuries that've passed since achieving your current ranks, how much progress towards that goal have you really made? When was the last time you managed to successfully eliminate one of their stronger factions in the mortal world? You continually tell those who follow you that the war will be a long one and that they will likely die of old age never having seen the final victory, but that's an excuse, isn't it. The truth is that it's taking all you have just to maintain your 'balance' and you are petrified that if you tried anything more aggressive you'd be exposed as lacking the attributes needed to win the war."

"SILENCE!" the being second from the left yelled even as he sent a blast of energy at her that wracked her body with pain even as she dropped to one knee.

"Yet how many innocent people, how many champions, are sacrificed because of your limitations? A hundred? A thousand? A MILLION?" she asked, fighting through the pain to get her point across. "You view them as expendable because you view one as being no different from another and, because they reproduce sufficiently, often that the loss can be replenished in less than a century. However you are mistaken. While there are those who share many qualities, each of them is unique and irreplaceable or at least they are to those who care for them. You think that just because those mortals with grievances towards your methods don't live long that you can escape responsibility but you are wrong. With every generation of bitter and resentful mortals you create, you push more of them into the enemy camp and they will use their desire for vengeance for their own twisted ends. Before long the enemy will outnumber you and you will have no one but yourself to blame for the crushing defeat that'll occur.

"Thus, if it is clear that the generals cannot fight the war properly, then it is up to the soldiers in the field to create their own orders," she said, summing up her position quite nicely. "Alexander Harris will be one of these soldiers and, through his efforts, along with those who choose to fight by his side, the darkness will realize that the rules of the game have changed."

"Absurd! Trust the conclusion of the war to beings whom live for less than a century? They see only their own lives and can perceive the future only in the abstract and vague depictions of their own imaginations. Only beings such as we who have the benefit of long lifespans and understanding of the larger picture are fit to lead the fight against the darkness!" the being to the far right declared with contempt.

"Of what use is living a long life and seeing the big picture if you cease to care about the lives being wasted through your long term plans?" she asked rhetorically, defiantly. "Doing what they will, without a care for who dies in the process, is the very definition of those we fight against."

"Enough," the second being from the right said, putting an end to the discussion. "Regardless of your motivations, you have clearly broken divine law with your actions this day. A full tribunal shall be convened and you will be given a chance to state your case then."

"Oh, I don't think you want to do that," she said, revealing her strategy to her opponents. "While I might've lost much two thousand years ago, one thing I have never given up is my position as one of the Almighty's archangels. And as you can see…"

Pulling back the right side of her blouse, she revealed what lay on her skin just above her breast so that all four of them could see it.

The look on their faces was PRICELESS!

"…The Almighty hasn't taken it away, either," she said with a victorious grin. "As such the only one with the authority to stand in judgment over my tribunal would be the Creator. Given that the rules of the tribunal clearly state that I am permitted to state my full case, I can use it as an opportunity to expose the shady and horrible acts you've committed over the last two thousand years. I might not know about all of them but what I do know about will easily be enough to put you in danger of losing your positions, if not something worse."

She had to use all the willpower she had left to keep from bursting with joyous laughter at the utter impotent fury they were displaying as they realized their predicament. They knew that they had no way of knowing what she'd been up to once they stopped directly keeping an eye on her in favor of simple spells. They were no doubt wondering whether or not she was bluffing or if she really did have evidence enough to bring them down if a tribunal was held overseen by the Almighty.

In the end they did much as she'd expected them to.

"Very well, Eileen McGlynn," the being on the far right said, grinding some metaphorical teeth. "You will be sent back to the mortal realm and we will let this incident slide. HOWEVER, be aware that from this moment onwards you will be under constant surveillance and, should you transgress again against divine law, your punishment will be as swift as it is permanent."

"Yeah, yeah… WHATEVER!" she said as though being threatened by a child. "Just send me back to Earth."

Apparently Whistler knew a pot dangerously close to boiling over when he saw one because in the blink of an eye she was back in the main chamber of Sparda and Eva's tomb.

 _Well, what to do, what do do…_ she thought as she looked about the chamber. _I guess I better make sure that the dangerous items here get disposed of properly. The set up for the ritual will dissipate on its own now that it's been used but anything still bottled or boxed is still viable._

As she set to work, she prayed that she had not put too big a load on Alexander's shoulders. While she had done the best she could to stack the deck in his favor, it all depended on the choices that he made upon waking. The life he'd led up until now, the lack of encouragement he'd received, it might cause him to believe that he wasn't cut out for the spotlight. If he chose to flee or wait for one of THEIR chosen champions to handle Temen-ni-gru, then while there was a chance that Dante might win by himself, it was far from a sure thing.

 _Believe in yourself, Alexander,_ she thought in the hopes that it would reach him. _Everything starts there._

 _ **Xander's POV**_

"Mmmm… wwha… where… am I?" he asked no one in particular as he regained consciousness.

Everything was weird and, considering the sort of things that he'd run into since hooking up with Buffy and G-man, that was saying something. His mind felt weird because it felt like someone had come into a carefully organized room belonging to him and then unleashed a hurricane to create a gigantic mess. His body felt like the few times that he'd gotten seriously beat up and they had to give him some pretty strong pain killers. He felt now like he had when the medicine was only half worn off, with a fuzzy and tingly feeling, making movement a bother. Then, of course, there was whatever he was laying on because he was certain that the fabric that it was made of wasn't something you'd see in the Harris household.

For a moment he considered just going back to sleep but then he remembered how ignorance could be lethal if you weren't careful so, with a groan, he opened his eyes.

The ceiling his eyes saw definitely wasn't something you'd see in the Harris house and it didn't match what he'd seen at Buffy or Willow's house. Pushing himself into a sitting position, he looked at the room he was in and found himself even more confused since it was an odd collection of things that didn't fit any one style. Most of the more common modern appliances and advancements were present, so whoever owned the place didn't like living like a hermit or anything. Still, the variety of decorations, ranging from the paintings on the wall to the rugs on the floor and then to the furniture, all spoke of different parts of the world. Whoever owned the apartment looked to be well travelled and had a respectable amount of coin to their name because, if what he'd overheard a few times from Missus S was true, then these decorations were expensive.

Before he could consider anything more about his surroundings the ground shook more violently than any of the earthquakes that'd hit California since he was born. There'd been several over the years and, while not all of them happened close to Sunnydale, enough that he knew what one was like. However this one was worse than all of them and because it'd come out of nowhere he'd wound up being thrown off what turned out to be a sofa to the floor.

"Ow!" he whined before shoving it aside and getting under the nearby coffee table since things were still falling off shelves and down from the ceiling.

The earthquake only lasted about a minute before settling down but it was enough that whoever owned the apartment he was in would definitely have some cleaning and replacing to do. Crawling out from beneath the table he stood up, wondering what the hell was going on… only to notice that his clothes didn't feel like they normally did.

So he did the normal thing: he looked down.

"What… the…?!" he exclaimed as he comprehended what his eyes were telling him.

Looking around quickly, he managed to find a full-length mirror and he zipped over to it as quickly as he could to see everything in order to be sure his eyes weren't fooling him. Black combat boots, white pants that, of all things, looked like they were made of leather, a black belt with a rather demonic looking silver belt buckle, a white vest that looked like it belonged on a soldier, with sewn in segments that he bet had ceramic plates shaped to look like human muscle groups, a white leather jacket that looked like it belonged in a western and finally black gloves that had probably been purchased from an army surplus store.

"I look like a white version of Blade!" he exclaimed, remembering the Wesley Snipes film by the same name.

Not only that but, instead of the dark locks of hair he'd had since he'd been born, his hair was now snow white in a way that looked like it came from a bottle. Bringing his hands up, he tried to check the roots the way he'd seen girls do to see if their dye job needed to be touched up but, no matter how closely he looked at his reflection, all he saw was white.

Shoving the oddity aside as one more in a long list, he had to wonder at what sort of terrible mess he'd blundered into this time but decided that it'd take a smarter mind than his to figure everything out. For now he'd focus on finding out where he was in relation to Sunnydale, then figure out how to get back home. Judging from the earthquake he'd just been through it was a pretty safe bet that he was still on the west coast since there weren't too many other places in the US that had nasty ones like this. Checking his coat and pant pockets, he found, much to his displeasure, that while he might have gone into that demon obstacle course with it, whenever his clothes had been swapped for the ones he was wearing the pervert forgot to put his belongings back in the right pockets.

 _Guess I'll have to ask Giles to buy me the bus ticket,_ he thought as he looked about the room for a phone.

Finding one on the wall in the hallway, he walked over to it and picked up the receiver but unfortunately there was a distinct lack of a dial tone. Tapping the usual buttons in order to coax some sort of response and preferably an encouraging sign that he could still make a phone call he got nothing, causing him to drop the receiver. Either the owner of the apartment hadn't paid their phone bill or the earthquake had somehow knocked out the phone lines. Considering how well furnished the apartment was, he didn't think the owner would lack the money to pay so he blamed the earthquake. Still, there had to be a phone someplace in the town or city he was in that still worked even after an earthquake, so he just needed to find it.

If he wound up having to call collect from a payphone, he was pretty sure that the Watcher would be able to pay for a five minute call from him.

He was just about to head for the door pain blossomed from his chest along with a curved blade that he was pretty sure didn't belong there. He was also pretty sure that he should be busy dying at the moment but, aside from the occasional flare up of pain and the blood pouring out of him, he was fine. He'd compare it to being no worse than scraping one's knee in terms of severity but that didn't mean he wasn't wigging out about being impaled on a blade.

Looking over his shoulder, what he saw was a demon of some sort that looked to be a grim reaper groupie but with skin still on the bones. It held a scythe in its hands and it was this weapon that was piercing his back and sticking out of his chest. What made things really bad, though, was the fact that there were two more shambling forward behind the one that'd attacked him. Afraid that he might really die if he wound up getting run through with another two blades, he forcefully pulled himself off the one sticking out of his chest and put some distance between him and them.

It was then that something happened that was both encouraging and shocking at the same time.

The hole in his body caused by the scythe's blade was closing up at an astonishing rate of speed and in less than ten seconds all that could tell anyone he'd been hurt was the lingering blood. Moving his arms a bit to affect the chest muscles, there was no pain at all.

 _I'm like Wolverine or something,_ he thought with amazement even as he felt better about surviving the present situation.

Still he didn't want to risk getting decapitated to see if he could survive that so that meant he needed to get rid of the three quickly before one of them landed a blow he couldn't come back from. Rushing forward again he reached out and grabbed hold of the weapon of the demon who'd first impaled him before lashing out with a kick. He figured if he could at least be armed with the scythe then at least he could stand a chance of fighting his way to safety.

For some reason, though, the owner of the scythe wasn't following the script he had in his head because, instead of just stumbling back a couple of steps, it flew back through the air before going through the window that'd been directly behind it. His mind rebelled at the idea since the window had easily been twenty feet away and the best he should've been able to manage but the proof had occurred right in front of him.

Apparently superhuman strength came with the superhuman healing.

Who knew?

Still, with this news he knew he had a chance of getting out of the mess in one piece so without further delay he charged the next closest demon and swung his stolen scythe. The thing proved itself to not be completely stupid as it managed to block the swing but, with the strength he'd put behind the swing, the blocking weapon was knocked upwards, allowing him to thrust the head of weapon into the thing's gut. Just as with the past foe superhuman strength was displayed but, instead of knocking it back into the wall, the head of the weapon instead pierced the thing's body, turning it into a shish-ka-bob. This posed the problem of impairing the one weapon he had and, when he heard a ghoulish noise coming from the other one, he knew it was about to attack.

 _Screw it!_ He changed his grip on the scythe and swung it around to meet the incoming attack.

Fortune must've decided to toss him a freebee because the swing was perfectly timed so that the blade of the oncoming threat severed the trapped demon in half while his sliced the attacking demon open across the middle. Watching as the one he impaled turned to ash that quickly disappeared much like a vamp from back home and the other one dropped to its knees trying to keep what insides it had on the inside, he decided to push his luck just that little bit further. Bringing his stolen scythe overhead, he slammed it down onto the head of the remaining demon, cleaving it cleanly into two halves, causing them to fall away a bit before turning into dust.

He expected to be a little out of breath after what he'd just done but he felt no different than he normally did after walking down a few flights of stairs.

 _Whatever,_ he thought before tossing aside the scythe and heading for the apartment's front door.

He didn't know whether or not the demons had followed him from the underground obstacle course or if the city was just another Hellmouth-like place, but staying put was not an option. Whether by accident or on purpose he'd been attacked and it was never a good idea to stay where an enemy knew to find you.

Exiting the apartment, he started looking for an elevator but then realized that, given that this was a post-quake situation, using that method for getting down might not be safe. So he changed his destination for the stairs, hoping that whoever built the apartment building hadn't skimped on the anti-earthquake precautions.

"AAAHHHH!" came a chorus of screams from around the corner at the end of the hallway.

 _I've got a bad feeling about this,_ he thought as he broke into a sprint for the source of the screams.

Turning the corner, he spotted another group of scythe-wielding demons advancing on a group of apartment residents, two of which were huddled together on the floor obviously the ones who'd screamed. However what he saw but had not anticipated was two other adults looking like they planned on fighting the demons. He personally considered this to be a bad idea for someone who had little to no experience fighting the supernatural. He had had a few close calls himself when he first started helping out Buffy because everything he'd known had come from Hollywood movies and comic books. After a particularly close call with a demon Giles had asked him why he'd done what he'd done and, when he'd given the Hollywood/comics answer, he soon came to regret it. For the next two hours Giles had given him a lecture on the inaccuracies of Hollywood and even forced him to submit additional examples for him to tear apart.

So it wasn't that he didn't think the adults could one day be decent demon hunters but rather that they needed to take it slowly step by step until they had everything they needed to kick ass. Weaponless, he charged, hoping that he'd be able to pull a repeat of his minutes ago victory… only to stumble to a halt when the man threw a punch that caused the lead demon to disintegrate on contact.

 _Definitely not human. Demon-human hybrid? Maybe,_ he thought in astonishment even as the remaining demons seemed to be reconsidering their course of action. _Either that or a mage with a knack for physical enhancement spells._

Whatever the case, instead of the demons fleeing in search of easier prey, they apparently called in reinforcements when a several of bigger white-clad demons armed with scythes teleported in accompanied by smaller red clad ones. Spread out as they were, the hallway wasn't exactly crowded but it definitely put the superhuman man in danger of being attacked on two fronts. Even if the guy managed one-hit kills every time he swung, there'd still be the danger of a backstab that couldn't be avoided.

 _Guess it's decoy time again,_ he thought as he resumed his charge, making sure that his footsteps made as much noise as possible.

As he'd hoped, the demons that'd appeared behind the powerful man turned in response to his noise but, by the time the red one that was closest raised its scythe to strike, he was already close enough to counter. Sending one hand up to block the scythe, he clenched the other into a fist before slamming it into the demon's chest. Much to his surprise it managed to dodge his strike, pulling its weapon free of his grasp as it did so, but as he watched its legs tense he knew what was coming next. Waiting for the right moment he leapt just as the crimson creature lunged, causing the slash to go under him and allowing him to throw a punch to its face. The strength of his own punch was combined with the speed of the demon's own lunge caused his opponent to be completely beheaded, causing it to disintegrate within seconds. However he didn't have time to be satisfied with his move since a second later one of the white ones teleported next to him, its scythe already raised to strike. Going with his instincts he lashed out with a leg sweep, succeeding in knocking it off its feet but, before he could do a follow up attack, it teleported again.

Without thinking he rolled away from his blind spot and the ting of metal hitting stone confirmed that he'd made the right move since his foe had teleported behind him. Getting back to his feet quickly, he decided that trying to take these things on one by one would be a mistake so, with as much speed and maneuverability as he could manage, he moved to get to the powerful man's side.

"Hope you don't mind a rookie tag team partner, sir," he said, figuring it couldn't hurt to be all formal and polite to the stranger.

"Not at all, boy!" the man said before delivering a devastating right hook to another scythe wielder. "We all gotta start somewhere. Ya got a name?"

"Alexander Harris but my friends call me Xander," he replied even as he executed a cross arm block to stop a descending scythe before field goal kicking the demon into the ceiling.

"Nice to meet ya, Alex! HA!" the man said before slamming his fist into the next demon's chest. "Name's Gideon and this is my wife Lizzie. Ya know what's going on here?"

"Not really. Kinda got knocked out and dropped in one of the apartments on this floor," he replied, grabbing hold of the next demon's weapon to stop it from coming down. "Still, with the earthquake and the demons showing up, I'm thinking we're stuck in the middle of an apocalypse."

"Apocalypse?! Now that's as crazy as a cat using hair gel," Gideon said, sounding like he found the idea a little farfetched. "More than likely some amateur summoner got careless with the brimstone. Still need to mop up the mess, though, and then find the summoning location. If the idiot didn't remember to seal up the hole this bunch came through, they'll just keep pouring through."

While he still sided with his instinct in that they'd stumbled into an apocalypse, the idea of some mage bungling things up was also a possibility. He remembered how Giles had mentioned once how many self-taught or overambitious magic users often did themselves in by getting careless and trying something beyond their reach. If that was the case here then it would explain a few things but to cause an earthquake like this… it'd have to be one helluva summoning.

"Then let's clear out these guys and get to ground level," he said, wrenching the scythe from the demon's grasp before using it to cut the creature in half. "If we can get a direction that these things are coming from, we'll know where to look."

"Ya sound like you do this sorta thing often," Gideon said as he turned another foe to dust with his fists.

"Grew up on a Hellmouth and spent the last two years helping out a Slayer," he said, feeling like he could trust the man with this much. "It's a new creature feature every week and for the last two years we've had world ending problems each year. That's why I thought this had the stink of an apocalypse. The first one I went through started with an earthquake."

"If quakes all meant apocalypses, though, the world woulda ended a long time ago," Gideon said before dispatching another demon.

"You got a point there," he admitted, blocking a scythe attack with his borrowed one before parrying it off to the side so he could lash out with a kick.

It took another five minutes before the last of the scythe wielders were destroyed and the hallway was clear of danger. Still, the feeling of unease wouldn't leave him because, if Gideon's theory was right, then these demons were being unleashed all over the city or town he was in. With so many people in the world utterly clueless about demons and magic, they'd have no way to defend themselves from it. He wanted to help them but he was only one person and, even with Gideon willing to fight by his side, people were going to die one way or another. The best thing that they could do would be to get to ground level, get mobile in a car or a truck and pick up as many people as they could along the way before getting out of town. With luck someone with the power and the skill to fix things would come along and keep things contained before the mess spread too far.

"Lizzie! Get the girls and let's get going!" Gideon ordered while brushing the dust off his tiger-colored jacket. "I doubt we'll be hassle free for long."

"Right! Juliet, Cordelia, Rosalind! We're leaving!" Lizzie yelled back into the apartment. "Just grab your coats, dears. If it's safe later on we'll come back for the rest."

He was a little surprised to find out that there were more people to the group but it didn't bother him much. Trotting out to join the rest of them in the hallway was a girl a few years younger than him with short blonde hair and a thing for buckles, another blonde girl who looked like she'd just hit puberty but still liked the twin pigtail hairdo and finally a girl about ten years old who liked punk due to the pink in her hair. The first one looked confident, like the Cordettes, but was definitely a predator and was wearing an outfit none of the in crowd at Sunnydale High School would be caught dead in.

Faith might like it, though.

The next in line was sucking on a lollipop and looked to be more or less at ease with what was going on around her, making him think that she'd been in the know for a while. When she saw him looking at her she smiled in a bubbly way that made him think that either she was on medication or had a truly carefree way of looking at things.

The last one, though, looked she had sugar and caffeine running through her rather than blood because she was bouncing on her feet while having a smile on her face that was two steps shy of manic. He didn't know of anyone who appeared to be so full of energy like this preteen girl looked to be but he definitely thought that she should tone it down if possible. Running full tilt for too long could wear down the body if done for too long.

"He's cute," the oldest of the trio said, looking at him like a predator would an interesting prey.

"Not now Cordelia," Lizzie chastised in a way that made him think this wasn't the first time her daughter had found a stranger 'cute'.

"Right. Time to stop gabbing and get going!" Gideon declared before taking the lead.

With that the group of eight, including the two terrified civilians who'd screamed, ran down the hallway making it to the emergency stairwell before beginning their descent towards ground level. They picked up a few other civilians along the way and, once they reached the front doors of the apartment complex, they stepped out in the sunlight…

…only to find out that things were significantly more complicated than either he or Gideon originally thought.

Towering high above the city, almost reaching into the sky, was a large structure that from what he could tell had burst from beneath the ground. That labeled it as the source of the earthquake that'd knocked him off the bed and there was a huge demonic looking whale flying through the air like it was water, and the demons they'd just fought inside, and it was a safe bet that this was more than some amateur summoner's screw up. Also, considering that this definitely wasn't Sunnydale and that he'd been sent here, his gut was telling him that someone wanted him to do something about it.

"Oh for crying out LOUD!" he exclaimed as he realized that the other shoe had dropped.

If he ever found out who'd dropped him in this situation, he was going to give them a hostile ranting they wouldn't EVER forget.

 _ **A Higher Realm of Existence**_

"Has he been found?" One asked from his position among the four.

"Yes… he's heading towards Temen-ni-gru…" a representative of the seers division replied with hesitation.

"Well, that's it then," Two groaned in dismay at how events would likely unfold. "Harris is going to get involved and screw everything up. The doorway to the demon world will open and the armies of Mundus the Demon King will conquer everything."

"Not necessarily, my old friend," Four said, sounding more optimistic about the situation. "If my reading of the situation is right, Arkham intends for both Sons of Sparda to reach the final chamber alive. In short, he intends to bring himself close to defeat in order to achieve ultimate victory."

This seemed to put the others at ease as they tried to see what their comrade saw.

"You mean to imply that if we but put a proverbial stone of the right size in his path, he could trip over it and be defeated," One said, sounding like he perceived some of the truth. "Yet how does that resolve the issue of Harris?"

"We allow Arkham to get as far as to awaken Temen-ni-gru. This will cause a hole to be formed leading to limbo and from there to the demon world," Four explained with a growing confidence. "It will also create smaller holes to open and close until it reaches full stabilization. Should Dante prove successful in stopping Vergil and Arkham, the closing of the gateway will also cause holes to open and close. If Harris were to be near one when it opened and 'accidentally' fall into it, then we could hardly be held accountable for an act of random chance."

"True. However it would need to be something subtle. VERY subtle," Two said, sounding more and more agreeable to the plan. "We could not simply grasp him with our power and throw him into one of these openings. It would be detected by any sensitive within range and SHE would almost certainly notice it and work to expose our involvement."

"We need not exert ourselves too much. With the right bait I feel that Harris will throw himself through one of the dimensional holes for us." Four said maliciously as the plan developed further.

As the plan was debated and developed, all four of them gained supreme confidence in the scenario they had devised. Theirs was the wisdom of the ages and experience that no mortal being could hope to match even if they devoted their entire life to doing so. With the resources at their disposal their plan could not fail!

The Earth would be saved and the thorn in their side would be cast out.

Such was for the good of the mortal realm.

Such was the will of what some referred to as The Powers That Be.

 _ **Xander's POV**_

 _I hope Gideon and the others made it out of town okay,_ he thought as he carefully made his way towards the tower.

As soon as they'd found transport, namely the largest motorhome in the parking lot, he'd parted company with the family of five, telling them that he wanted to investigate the tower and its nature before leaving for safer ground. Gideon objected to this, figuring it'd be suicide and urged him to come with the rest of them but he politely declined.

He even made an outrageous claim that he would plant the seed of his legend here and that he'd send them a bronze statue to put on their mantle so that they could brag to their friends about having met him. This got him a laugh out of the whole family but he piqued Gideon's interest enough to let him go, but the man made him promise to survive since dying would only make him a legendary fool.

As he got closer to the tower he was having trouble keeping the title of fool from settling on him since demons seemed to be around every corner as well as on the rooftops and balconies. Choosing stealth over direct opposition, he'd used every option he had to avoid them since, at the moment, all he had to fight with was an enemy scythe that currently was crumbling in his hand. The weapons of the demons he killed in the apartment building had turned to dust even as their bodies did, so did that mean that the owner of his weapon still lived? Even if that was the case, the weapon was still falling apart and he'd put money on it ceasing to be useful in less than two hours.

 _You'd think if someone wanted me to do something they'd have let me keep those weapons from the tests,_ he thought, hiding as a group of demons shambled past where he crouched.

While the twin scimitars might've been useless, the gold and silver revolvers would've given him something to rely upon. Even if he kept robbing his foes of their weapons to make them his own, they all seemed to be melee weapons. That might be fine against small groups of enemies but, if a lot of them came at him, or even that demon whale, he'd be crushed before he made the smallest dent. If the demons acted anything like human soldiers then it was likely that they would have a sizeable amount of troops around the base of the tall tower. What he had witnessed thus far were probably scouting parties or merely monsters striking at targets of opportunity to satisfy their hellish appetites. In any case, the closer he got to the base of the tower, the more demons he'd come across until sneaking past them would prove impossible.

 _If I can't sneak past them, then what?_ he thought, pondering the dilemma even as he moved from cover to the next closest one along his path to the tower.

Was it his purpose here to simply gain intel and then leave to give it to the one who'd put a stop to this demon invasion? Or did the person who'd dropped him there intend for him to enter the unholy tower himself to somehow contribute to its downfall? Personally he found the latter possibility ridiculous because, even with the upgrades he'd somehow gotten, it would be nowhere near good enough to pull off such a role. Maybe if Buffy got these power ups and got dropped there she might be able to help end the developing horror but not a support-o-guy like him.

With a sigh he guessed that he would go as far as his courage would take him and turn back before things became utterly suicidal, even by the most optimistic person.

It was a short while later that he picked up on the sound of a motorcycle close by and, from the roar of its engine, the rider was pushing it pretty hard. However, instead of heading away from the tower, the vehicle sounded like it was going towards it, making him wonder at the sanity of the driver.

Then again perhaps the driver was the hero he was meant to help.

Either way his own personal code forbade him from turning his back upon them so, with a clearer destination in mind, he moved to intercept the motorcycle driver.

With a bit of strain he found that he had to almost completely throw stealth out the window in order to make any progress towards the sound of the roaring engine. Fortunately the lumbering forces of demons didn't seem to be all that quick to react to suspicious noises and so, by the time they looked towards the source of the noise, he was already long past it. It wouldn't last forever, though, but hopefully it would last long enough for him to hook up with the hero, whoever they were, or the crazy person heading towards the demons rather than away. If it was the hero then at least he'd have someone to watch his back but, if it was a crazy person, he'd knock them unconscious and then drive their bike with them on the back as they left the town.

Looking ahead he saw that the path he'd chosen was blocked by debris but, when he looked for another way, he spotted a fire escape that looked to be still in good condition. Deciding to see just how good his superhuman strength was he gathered some speed and, with all the power he could muster, he leapt upwards, intent on grabbing hold of the railing of the lowest part. However instead of his ascent slowing to a stop at that lowest part he found himself rising up even further to the second lowest level of the fire escape, landing neatly on its side, grabbing hold of it automatically. Looking down, he couldn't help but feel somewhat surprised but then shoved it to the side to be considered in more depth later.

Climbing up the ladders to the roof he looked for some visual sign of the motorcycle but unfortunately, whether it was the solid buildings or the smoke from the fires still burning, he could see nothing. Resuming his run towards the sound of the engine he decided to see if he could leap the gap across the street below to the roof on the opposite side. Pushing his body into a sprint, he waited until he got right to the edge of the roof before leaping with all his might. As he flew through the air he worried for a moment that he might've overestimated himself and set himself up for a rather painful landing, but in the end his feet managed to touch down on the other roof, missing the edge by less than three feet. It wasn't near enough for him to feel fear but it would make him judge gaps a little more seriously in order to avoid nasty falls.

Eventually things turned his way when the motorcycle engine sound seemed to drop in volume as well as come to a stop, implying that the driver had come to a stop for some reason.

BANG!BANG!BANG!

B'DDA!B'DDA!

BBBOOOOMMM!

That reason being that they'd come across trouble and couldn't just speed their way through without getting torn apart. Picking up the pace, he crossed what gaps he could until he finally reached a rooftop that allowed him to set eyes on the biker and their ride.

To say that he didn't expect to see a short haired brunette in a white blouse, plaid skirt and boots wielding automatic firearms and…

BBOOOOMM!

Unless his eyes were deceiving him, a custom made rocket launcher.

The girl who looked to be a little younger than him was taking down demons left and right, seamlessly replacing magazines in her weapons once they ran dry, while using some style of acrobatics he couldn't name to keep her foes from landing a hit. Looking a little ways away from her he spotted her means of transportation in the form of a sweet looking red motorcycle with some serious custom work done to it. Probably to store extra ammo along with a few surprises for unfriendly guests but, given the density of demons she was in the middle of now, it wouldn't have been fast enough to get past with taking a few dings.

Looking back to the battlefield, he spotted something alarming in the form of six demons that looked to be carrying large, pulsing orange orbs towards the teenage terror. The orbs didn't look to make for very good melee weapons and, if they'd been long range weapons they would've been used already, so that only left… BOMBS! They were carrying BIG bombs towards her and probably planned on detonating them regardless of whether they themselves got blown up in the process. Quite a few demons used surrogate bodies when visiting the human world according to Giles, so even if these bombers wound up destroying themselves their spirits would only return home to be spawned again. He didn't know what sort of blast radius the bombs had but that only meant that he could not allow them to get any closer to the teenage demon killer than they already were.

With a strong swing he threw his scythe so that it swung like a buzz saw towards the scythe wielders to the rear of the bomb carriers, managing to bisect three of them before the blade became stuck in the four's body, removing it from battle. Leaping from the roof, he managed to snag one of the few upright lampposts, swinging around it once before letting go and landing to the ground. Looking ahead he could see that he had the attention of the demons that'd been coming up on the girl's rear as well as the ones carrying the bombs. That was good for the girl but, given that he was currently unarmed, he had to wonder at his chances of making it out of the current situation with as little pain as possible.

Looking about for a substitute weapon, preferably something that would work at long range, he found, much to his good fortune, the fight was taking place close to the local gun shop. The window was smashed and some empty boxes for ammunition implied that it wasn't the demons that'd taken the bullets from them. Perhaps some civilians crazy with fear had robbed the place in the hopes of defending themselves. Whatever the case, he now had options for weaponry that wouldn't require that he get close to the demons with the bombs but rather a way to kill them from a distance. Running over to the shop, he looked for a gun that would suit him and used his lingering soldier memories to choose one to suit his needs. Sadly it looked like whoever had looted the place for weapons and ammunition had done a rather thorough job of it, leaving only lever action or bolt action rifles behind. It made sense from a modern viewpoint since many people had grown up watching Hollywood movies that often favored semi-automatics and fully automatic weaponry as well as things that went boom.

Rooting around quickly he went for the first thing that he found, which turned out to be a M1887 Winchester shotgun, but it looked like it'd been modified by the owner of the shop to have a pistol grip along with a larger loop on the trigger guard. He had to laugh a bit since it looked to him like Fate was determined to bestow upon him guns featured in some of his favorite movies. Looking about the mess of ammunition boxes that had not been emptied, he managed to find three that could be used with the shotgun so he popped one open before feeding them to the gun. He only just managed to finish sliding in the sixth round when a moan told him that the demons had managed to catch up with him.

Whirling around he brought up the shotgun, aiming it at the grey-clad demon, and fired, hitting right in the chest and causing his foe to stumble back. Working the lever action, the spent shell popped out while sliding in a new one, so he fired again, forcing the demon back further but this time there was noticeable difficulty in the creature being able to stand up straight. Deciding to spare the remaining ammunition he darted forward and tore its scythe from the demon's grasp before spinning clear of the thing's attempt to reclaim it and slamming the blade one handed through its chest. A single gurgle was all the demon could muster before it disintegrated into dust, not to rise again.

He didn't let his gaze linger, though, but rather he went back to the boxes of ammunition, stuffing as many rounds as he could into his jacket pockets as he dared before leaving the store to go to the teenage girl's aid. Back in the open air he could see that, without a visual aid, the demons whose attention he had gained with his surprise attack were now drifting back to their original prey. The girl looked to be doing well but was still besieged with enough enemies that it'd be luck that would allow her to be aware of the explosive threat approaching her. Charging forward, he used the predictable movements of the scythe demons to get into position and then, with as much precision as he could manage, fired at the orbs that he suspected were bombs. When one shot did not get the desired effect he fired a second one, but only once the third shot landed did he get what he wanted.

In a storm of fire and decaying shrapnel the bombs being carried by the demon detonated, killing the smaller scythe demons and causing the explosive carried by a nearby monster of the same sort to go off. As a result the number of demons heading towards the teenage girl had been halved, with only three more of the explosive variety to deal with. It was a bit annoying that he needed three shots to achieve detonation, especially since without those magically reloading revolvers from the gauntlet he'd run, the number of rounds he had were finite. If after the fight the girl allowed him to scoop up every compatible shell from the gun shop he'd be in a better position to support her when she entered the tower. If she refused to wait for him then all he could do would be to get his ammunition and then do his best to catch up with her before she got in too far over her head.

 _Whatever happens later I first have to survive right now,_ he thought as he used feints and superior maneuverability to get into the best position he could manage to shoot.

The gunfire lasted for a while but steadily the two of them whittled down the hellish opposition until there were none within eyesight and neither could more be heard approaching from elsewhere. Looking down at his shotgun, he measured that he had one full gun and enough rounds in his pockets for two more reloads before he ran dry. If he could gain at least three more fills of rounds then he could provide enough support that he could be satisfied by the time he was forced to withdraw. He might not have any experience with raiding demonic towers outside of videogames or dice games but he knew that the closer you got to the top, the stronger the enemies became. Throw in a few sub-bosses at periodic points of progress and things would get twice as hard.

He might be willing to fight the good fight against the darkness but even he knew better than to dive into something without the means of surviving.

"Well THAT was a lot of fun that wasn't!" he exclaimed with a bit of levity, gaining the attention of the girl. "Whatsay we try to avoid big clumps of these things when we're in the tower? I mean, sure, it'd sound awesome later when we're telling the story to anyone who'll listen that we killed every last one in there but unless your guns have some sort of infinite ammo feature, we'll need to ration out what we've got so we'll have it when it counts."

"You can do whatever you want," the girl said coldly even as she went about reloading her guns. "I'll kill whoever and whatever I have to in there to find the MAN I'm after."

"Well unless all the demons plan on putting themselves in your way there's no reason to fight your way through all of them," he pointed out, figuring that unless the girl had Slayer level stamina she wouldn't last through that many continuous fights.

"Whatever," she said, holstering her guns before hopping back onto her bike before restarting the engine and roaring off for the tower.

He could only sigh and roll his eyes at the girl before thinking that the least she could've done was offer him a ride the rest of the way to the tower.

 _Guess I better hurry and pilfer whatever I can from the gun shop then rush to catch up to her._ He turned towards the demolished storefront. _If she's as stubborn as Buffy she'll barrel through every last demon and only realize she's screwed up when she's down to her final clip._

Looked like his taste in women remained ever the same.

He just hoped it wouldn't end the same way most of his interactions with women did because, if so, she'd try to kill him.

At least he'd stand a better chance of surviving this time around.


	3. New toys and new friends?

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted materials contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and/or the associated companies. I make no profit from this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this at any point in the future. I write because it's fun and because there are people who enjoy my stories. Therefore I would greatly appreciate it if no legal action were taken against me.

PS-Positive reviews will be appreciated. Constructive criticism will be considered but not necessarily acted upon. People looking to bash my stories, troll my work, will at the very least be ignored and at most review blocked.

 _ **Arkham's POV**_

 _I-Impossible!_ he thought as his arcane senses were pinged albeit with some distortion. _He was dead! I know he was!_

Yet there could be no mistaking the ping he received as coming from the spell he'd placed on the boy, Alexander Harris, so that he would be able to keep tabs on his substitute Son of Sparda. Why he had not sensed it sooner, given that its range extended to the very edges of the city, he did not know but he supposed that it was possible that the spell could have been damaged. That would explain its reduced range and distortion but it also made him concerned that the other precautions he'd put into place might also be compromised. That would be troublesome since one of the spells would've allowed him to suppress Alexander's conscious will and place his substitute's body completely under his command. It would still be capable of fighting with all due skill as well as speak as the boy normally did, but would be completely subservient to his will the entire time. He'd only intended to use this spell during the final confrontation or if he needed to maneuver a piece back onto course.

Now, though, he would need to test it beforehand in order to ensure that it would work as he desired instead of fail him when he tried to employ it later.

"What is it, Arkham?" Vergil asked from the lead position as they waited atop Temen-ni-gru for Dante to make his way up to them.

"Nothing of consequence, my lord," he replied, playing the part of a dutiful servant. "Merely a flutter of energy that caught my attention. Pay it no mind."

And just like he'd expected, the aloof Son of Sparda, with his unjustified arrogance, turned away from him to look at the landscape of the city like a king beholding his kingdom.

Fool.

Even if the tales of his skill and power were all completely true, he alone would not be able to conquer the world. Even if he were to go to the limbo and try to claim IT, the idiot would fail. Oh, it was easy as anything to see what drove the blue-clad warrior. The trauma of his mother's death, after hearing the tales of his father's great battle prowess, had clearly convinced the young man that in order to do anything in life you needed the power to cast down those in your way. However since there was always someone greater, the Son of Sparda's quest for power would never end until he attained the supreme power of a god. That he was here, now, seeking the power of his father, power that in the past had proven capable of challenging Mundus in battle, proved that he wished to gain the power of a god.

But that power would not come to Vergil.

No.

It would come to him and with that power he would achieve all his goals both great and small.

He would wrench Kalina Ann's soul from the grasp of the foul demon that'd torn her from him and he would seize this world for his own!

All would worship and fear him!

 _ **Xander's POV**_

 _So, pro: I'm in the tower and there doesn't seem to be a lot of demons still around,_ he thought as he proceeded to navigate the staircase upwards. _Con: I've lost track of Schoolgirl._

Still, with so few demons around it meant he'd have an easier time conserving his ammo and catching up to the apparent hero of the adventure he was on.

Even as he continued on though he couldn't quite shake the lingering doubts in his mind about what he was doing. Sure, with a tower this size crawling with demons it screamed apocalypse but he wasn't exactly the lead actor of any show so it wasn't him that'd be the one to save the day. At the same time it was a quite a few levels above anything he'd helped out with before in Sunnydale. It was only the super healing and the super strength that gave him enough courage to keep on going but if there was one thing that he'd learned in Sunnydale it was that there was always a bigger fish. Sooner or later he was going to come across a demon that'd laugh off the shotgun blasts like they were spit wads. His fists might manage after that but not very far since anything that could laugh off shotgun blasts would probably only just feel his fists when they landed.

Would he be able to last all the way to the big boss of the tower? He very much doubted it.

Would he be able to get at least two thirds of the way there before being forced to give up? Maybe, but it'd be much easier to do if he could catch up with and team up with Gun Girl since two was always better than one when facing multiple enemies. Now if you grossly had eyes on the back of your head and a second set of arms you might be able to get by but no human he'd ever met had those features.

Did he wind up getting them?

Nope. No, he didn't think so and he was SO thankful for that because it'd have been super freaky and probably a little gross.

As he reached what looked to be level four of the tower he was a little worried when he came upon a metal door that looked like it'd been recently uncovered by some retractable wall. Odd feature to have in a place like this but then again a place inhabited by demons probably didn't make any kind of human sense by its very nature. The question was did Miss Girl Power come go through it or did she keep going up. Looking higher up the tower he noticed that there were quite a few gaps where time had caused the stone to crumble and some of the gaps were definitely too wide for a human to jump across. All in all he felt that the odds were good that she had indeed gone through the door, if only due to the lack of other viable options.

 _But where'd she leave her motorcycle?_ he thought as he pushed open the metal door. _I doubt it'd make it through the door._

Entering the next chamber he found it to be a ghoulish place with spider-webs all over, withskeletal remains of both man and beast littering the floor. For a moment he wondered precisely how many years the tower had been underground and supposed that, given that an entire city had been built over it for at least a century or two, the place had been buried for much longer. Seeing another door on the far side of the chamber he began to walk towards it as his next destination but an ominous sound reached his ears and he stopped in his tracks to determine the source. To his ears it sounded like many pencils being tapped against stone but the tapping was not random and followed a pattern that felt too much like footsteps.

Footsteps caused by more than one pair of feet to be sure and therefore not human.

"This one left the female to pass as she looked too small a meal for this one," a high pitched and somewhat cracked female voice said from the dark corners of the chamber. "However this one senses much power in you. Power enough to feed this one for many centuries to come."

Keeping his shotgun ready to fire, he did not act like some fools might've by firing blindly into the darkness in the hopes of hitting something. Ammo was not something to be wasted plus shotguns had limited range to begin with, so until he could perceive with his own eyes the speaker he would hold his fire.

"Sorry to disappoint but I doubt I'll keep you satisfied for more than an hour before you're hungry again," he said even as he tried to discern where his foe was hiding. "Besides, as pitiful as it sounds, I'm too young to die. I still have things that need doing so I'm going to have to ask you to let me pass."

"This one thinks the male does not give himself due credit," the female voice said, most definitely from a different location than before. "Sadly this one has been too long forced to suffice on the vermin of this tower. Even if the male does not fill my belly for long it will be a welcome change."

"Does it help my case if I say I'm not a virgin anymore?" he asked on the off chance that his fling so recently with Faith would take his head off the chopping block.

"This one does not care," she replied, sounding like it truly mattered little to her.

The time for talking ended as a strand of webbing shot out from the darkness, no doubt intending to ensnare him so that its owner could finish him off. However used to dealing with speedy assaults he dove off to the side quickly getting back to his feet so he could evade the follow up shot that came as predicted by hopping to the side. Once his feet landed he charged forward and once he felt as though he was close enough he brought his shotgun up and fired a test shot. If it hit its mark then he will have learned that his foe either did not consider him enough of a threat to be worth evading or was not swift enough to match his maneuverability. However if it missed then his foe was indeed quite swift and he would need to somehow lure her in close so that, no matter what speed she had, she would not be able to evade his shots.

"Skittery, skittery the male is," she said with no sign that she'd been hurt. "The male tries to hurt this one with his thunder but it reaches this one not. This one is too fast but the male will tire sooner or later while this one will not. When the male can flee no more, this one will feed."

 _So she plans to play the stamina game._ He remembered his Uncle Rory lecturing him once as they watched a boxing match. _Make me do all the work until I run out of steam then go in for the kill._

A good plan but since it wasn't his and didn't benefit him, he couldn't say he liked it.

There had to be some way though that he could turn things around.

One idea would be to feign getting tired in the hopes that the demon would come out into the open to 'feed', only for him to succeed in landing a shot at point blank range. The only problem with that would be if she chose to ensure her victory by webbing him up first since he knew not if he'd be able to free himself before her fangs sunk into him. Given that she seemed to be a demon spider, he'd lay good odds that her bite would be venomous and that would only make winning that much harder.

Another would be to seek a way to brighten up the room and rid the spider femme of the shadows that concealed her. If he could somehow do that then he would at least be able to better anticipate her attacks and know where to direct his fire. Being able to visually acquire her would allow him to make sure his shots would be fired inside of the shotgun's effective range. However the lack of suitable fuel in the room would make sustaining a bright flame difficult and the spider femme would probably try to smother the flame with her webbing.

Perhaps…

For the next ten minutes he dodged her webbing attacks while firing the bare few shots he dared to keep up the charade, but when he was finished he dropped to one knee as though catching his breath. Reaching slowly and carefully into his coat pocket, he took out the item he desired but did not activate it because the timing was not right.

As he'd predicted, the spider lashed out with her webbing, casting it all around him. Both to test its strength and to play into the role he'd cast himself he pushed up against the webbing. The substance was quite strong but he felt that if he went all out with the strength he'd gained since he'd been taken from Sunnydale he could power his way out of it in a minute or so. However that would not be in keeping with his plan, so he did his best to feign that the webbing was too strong for him to break with a few grunts of exertion and frustration. He kept this up for a minute or so before stopping and allowing some heavy breaths to escape him in order to play up the appearance of being exhausted.

Then, just as he'd hoped, he heard the tickety-tackety of pencils that he'd earlier, only this time they were getting closer. Less than a minute later he got his first look at his foe, which turned out to be a weird mixture of spider and humanoid female. If he had to describe the demon he would say that she looked to resemble the centaurs of Greek myth except that, instead of being half human and half horse, the demon was half spider and half human female. From the waist down she was a spider, with four legs on either side letting her tip-toe her way towards him with practiced ease. From the waist on up she was more or less akin to a twenty-something human women with the exception of her spider-like eyes, her sharp teeth and claw-like fingernails. Bits of what appeared to be armor kept her ample chest protected but, narrowing his eyes a bit, he saw that the armor was in fact some sort of carapace. Stalking towards him, she was truly a horrifying sight to behold but he'd seen scarier on the Hellmouth so he was not overly affected.

 _Just a little more…just a little more…NOW!_ He used what freedom he had to light the road flare that he'd taken from the gun shop.

Using it like a sort of plasma knife he sliced through the webbing securing him to the ground, rising up as it did so in order to bring his shotgun to bear. The look of shock on the spider-femme's face made it clear that his plan had worked and so, with as much speed as he could muster, he worked the lever action and fired upon on her. The first three shots did indeed succeed in hitting her square on but after that the demon managed to leap to the nearest wall, quickly scrabbling up it for the safety of the darkness.

 _Too little, too late, Madam Spider,_ he thought since he now had two ways of finding her; the sound of her feet moving about and the drops of mildly luminescent blood that fell from the wounds he'd inflicted.

Last he checked gravity was still fully working inside the tower, so all he'd need to do would be to aim for the blood drop's source. So long as he was able to bring her back to ground before her wound healed or she came up with some way to trick him into exposing his back to her, he would win this fight.

He tried to follow the blood drops and occasionally looked up to see if he could spy the wound itself in the shadows that the female spider demon was hiding in. Sadly the glow given off by the blood was not bright enough to pierce through the shadows and, even when it hit the floor, he had to consciously look for it in order to spot it. Still, as he watched the drops fall, when they indicated that the demon had come to a stop, he estimated their trajectory and fired immediately before the spider demon could get out of the way. The scream of pain told him that he'd at least grazed her with the shot but unfortunately he found out as he worked the lever that the shotgun was empty. Reaching into his pocket, he began plucking out new rounds and sliding them into the shotgun as swiftly as he could, given that he was vulnerable for this short time.

Sadly his reload speed was not as swift as it should have been and out of nowhere a stream of webbing struck the barrel of the shotgun, covering the business end thoroughly. With it clogged there was little doubt that if he tried to fire it as it was he'd destroy the firearm, leaving him with fists that wouldn't reach his foe, putting him at a decided disadvantage. Reaching for the webbing, he worked to pry enough off that it could once again be fired but then a mass slammed into his back, sending him to the ground and keeping him there.

"The male has hurt This One!" the she-spider roared angrily even as he struggled to turn around to face her. "This One bleeds! The male will be made to suffer! The male will DIE and be left to rot, having lost the honor of being This One's food!"

"Well… isn't… that… just… super!" he said as his efforts finally got him half turned around.

Unfortunately he was unable to move further when Madam Spider pierced his right leg with one of her legs, making further movement a bad idea if he wanted to avoid further injury.

His shotgun was lost to him and he was hardly in the best of positions to punch or knock the demon off of him to regain his footing. He was positive that she was moments away from dealing him some serious damage and he could do nothing to fight back. With on leg punctured and the other beneath it, he could not effectively kick and his arms, while strong, were still too short to hit her. He could do something nuts like intentionally tear his impaled leg free so he could finish turning around but he had no idea how long his healing factor would take to patch it back together. Even if it only required ten seconds to be restored to full function, that would still be ten seconds in which the spider-lady could do him further harm. Also, if he went too far with his wrenching, he could wind up taking off his entire leg, in which case he was pretty sure a new one wouldn't grow back in his place like it would for Wolverine.

 _Looks like this is it,_ he thought with frustration. _Guess I should've seen this coming. Step onto a larger stage and five minutes later I'm already screwing up._

Given all the teleporting he'd apparently been through, it was unlikely that the gang back home would know where the hell he was, so dying meant he'd just be one more disappearance to add to the unending Sunnydale list. Buffy, Willow, Giles, Oz… maybe even Cordelia… would mourn his loss but hopefully it wouldn't hurt them so much that it would change who they were or prevent them from continuing on. Then again maybe they'd think that he just left town after their attempts to force him into being fray adjacent and only be a little hurt that he didn't tell them where he was going. When he didn't get in contact with them after a month or two Willow would probably risk visiting Tony and Jessica for answers. Seeing as how both were poor examples of humanity, he doubted very much that they'd offer any help whatsoever. After that his best bud would resort to either sorcery or computer hacking to try to find him.

Considering the mess the city was in, the odds of someone snagging a picture or a bit of video of him that Willow would be able to find was small indeed.

Any way you sliced it, he wouldn't be found and his disappearance would hurt his friends, something he wouldn't intentionally allow to happen.

But wasn't that what he was doing by giving in?

"Fuck it!" he growled before using his strength to pull at the leg that was impaled.

It hurt, GOD did it hurt, but he forced things forward trying to make it so that the spearing leg came out of the side of the leg that would leave the least amount of damage. When the last of the resistance vanished, signaling that the leg no longer pinned, he rolled the rest of the way onto his back before bringing up his uninjured leg and using it to force the bug lady off of him. Despite the pain he maneuvered himself into a crouch, putting as much weight as possible on his good leg while taking off what he could from his bad one. He spotted his shotgun but it was much too far away for him to get it until his leg was fully healed and he somehow doubted that Madam Spider would wait that long before attacking again.

That meant that all he had were his fists and the hope that he'd be able to land a blow from his current posture.

 _No holding back then!_ His foe skittered about. _Full strength with the best moves I can manage!_

 _The steel has formed,_ came a dual voice that sounded like it was coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. _The conditions have been met._

 _Wha-where?_ he thought as he wondered what new batch of weirdness was about to hit him square in the face.

 _Call us forth, new Master,_ the dual voice said, again with no observable point of origin. _Call us forth and together we will smite this arrogant spider._

 _Call you forth? How? I don't know who you are!_ he thought since he didn't want to look like a fool or give anything important a way.

 _You do,_ the dual voice said to him. _See and remember._

With that an image popped into his mind of the twin scimitars that'd stubbornly refused to be drawn in his fight against the demon babies. Then the image zoomed in on the words that'd been inscribed on the two sheathes and at first they were as incomprehensible now as they had been then.

Then, as though alive, each stroke that made up the letters used in the overall words began to flow apart, changing their positions and coming together in a way that was different than before. This time he could read it perfectly and, while it was ridiculous as well as cheesy, he decided to give it a whirl just because he didn't have any other options at the moment.

"Praeteritum! Mellontikós!" he shouted, holding out his hands to either side. "Come!"

In an instant, in response to his words the twin scimitars broke through the stone floor, slapping into his hands, and he wrapped his fingers around their hilts tightly. With the physical contact he felt new power flow through him for a moment as well as a connection to the swords that he did not know before. With that connection came knowledge he definitely hadn't had before but he was had pressed to call it textbook knowledge or memories belonging to another. Whatever the source of the knowledge, he had newfound confidence about the odds of him coming out of the fight in one piece and perhaps even winning in the process.

"So the male has Devil Arms," Madam Spider said with contempt. "It matters not. This one has fought and devoured many who also wielded great weapons. THE MALE WILL BE NO DIFFERENT!"

"Normally I like confidence in ladies but this time I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut you down to size!" he said as he pushed forward off his good leg, taking the fight to the bug lady.

The moment he was within range he executed a slash that he'd gained through the connection but Madam Spider was just quick enough to get out of the way.

Or so he thought but when he heard the cry of the spider demon he turned to see that, instead of being unharmed, one of her legs had been cut off at the first joint.

"Kekekekekekeke! How!? The male did not strike This One so why is This One injured?!" Madam Spider exclaimed in fear.

 _I am no simple blade,_ half of the dual voice said into his mind. _I am Mellontikós. To evade a strike by me one must be two steps ahead, not just one._

 _Translation: if someone wants to dodge you then they need to do so by quite a bit or you'll still hit your mark,_ he thought with a smile as he realized what the scimitar in his right hand could do. _Hence the Greek word for 'future'._

However accurate his understanding of the right scimitar's power was, Madam Spider was clearly rattled by what he'd managed to do. A rattled demon sometimes reacted in reckless and unpredictable ways so he had to be ready for anything. Fortunately for him every moment she failed to make a decision on what to do bought his injured leg more time to patch itself back together, bringing him back to full strength. At the moment he still couldn't put more than a little weight on it before feeling it give way under the burden. Still, he could tell the difference between when he'd freshly torn himself free and the present, so he knew his body was healing itself swiftly.

He just needed a little more time.

"The male is dangerous! More dangerous than this one had ever thought!" Madam Spider declared, finally having reached a consensus in her mind. "The times for games are done and now this one will strike with all this one's strength and skill."

The demonic arachnid advanced towards him and he decided to meet her halfway, but even as he pushed off his good leg the spider abruptly changed direction, taking her well out of the way of his charge. Painfully he worked to halt his movements and reorient himself to face his enemy but, even as he gritted his teeth a bit upon laying eyes on her, she again shifted direction. Obviously she was trying to attack him from outside his field of vision while making it almost impossible to mentally anticipate her approach vector.

She was definitely taking him seriously at the moment.

However he would not give into her easily and continued to move in order to keep up with her movements and ensure that she did not approach without his eyes on her.

Unfortunately with most of his focus centered on tracking her movements with his eyes, he forgot about his injured leg for a moment and so when he put more weight on it than it could handle the pain caused him to close his eyes momentarily. Without even thinking he knew that she would take advantage of this momentary loss of vision so, with his best guess, he brought up the scimitar in his left hand to defend against whatever she sent his way. The funny thing was that he began to feel resistance on his blade, signaling that something had hit it, but this was before it was in position to where he thought the oncoming attack was coming for. If that was the case then how did be block the attack?

 _To succeed in making it past my blade one must attack from a direction I cannot reach,_ the other half of the dual voice said with pride.

 _Translation: the only way to make it past Praeteritum's guard is to either catch me completely by surprise or to attack from a direction I could never get it to in time to block._ He forced the attack to the side as he turned to face the demon spider woman.

With frustration he watched as she once more began to zip about in an effort to gain an opportunity to strike from his blind spot. He was somewhat impressed that she was managing to move so swiftly, given the wounds he'd given her thus far, but then considered that if she had a healing factor as well and it was faster than his then that could explain it. If that was the case, though, then it meant that he needed to do overwhelming damage to her, more damage than her healing factor could keep up with, if he wanted to kill her. However with her zipping about the way she was it would be almost impossible to get close until his wounded leg healed up and perhaps not even then.

 _Then where the blades cannot reach perhaps another weapon would fare better,_ came a voice without source but singular rather than plural. _You wielded me well against the hachūruiken demons. Now that you've been made stronger we should work even better together. Sheath your blades and call my name. Together we shall end this fight._

Agreeing with the sentiment and knowing who had spoken, he slid the twin scimitars into sheathes that he hadn't realized had manifested at his waist.

"Nue no Gin! Come!" he commanded with the order of a captain ordering one under him.

In response two columns of energy shot into existence going from floor to ceiling, one the color of gold while the other the color of silver, and once fully formed he forced a hand into each of them. It took less than a moment for him to find what he sought in the columns and, once he wrapped his fingers around the grips, he pulled them out.

One revolver made of gold and one revolver made of silver.

The very weapons that'd been the most cooperative in the gauntlet he'd run before being knocked out and finding himself in this city.

Whatever their origin or how they manifested just now, with them present taking down the spider demon would be that much easier to do. Following Madam Spider around the room, he brought up the silver revolver and laid down some fire directly in her path and, when she stopped, he used the golden revolver to fire upon her. This resulted in a near miss but it also put them on more even ground since with the revolvers the spider femme wouldn't be able to move as freely as she otherwise might have. If he could just pin her down long enough to land some direct hits, he could swing the fight in his favor and then end it.

Maybe… just maybe…

 _Could you manage it, Nue no Gin?_ he thought to his weapons even as he continued to lay down fire on his foe.

 _I'm insulted you need even ask,_ Nue no Gin replied, sounded offended. _As if there was anything that such a low born demon could do against me._

It was decided then.

He continued to fire his shots until both revolvers were empty then made it look as though he intended to reload them manually keeping secret the fact that the weapons could do so on their own. Then, just as he'd hoped, the spider woman proved her lack of imagination by using her webbing to clog the barrels in the hopes of rendering them useless. Waiting until the last second he whirled towards the direction she'd attacked from before bringing both barrels up aimed directly at her. The she spider only grinned, believing herself safe since in most cases firing a clogged gun would split the barrel, ruin the gun and potentially harm the wielder.

Fortunately for him Nue no Gin was not a common set of revolvers.

"Nice move!" he said with a smile before turning changing his expression to one of deadly resolve. "Poor strategy."

With that he allowed the cylinders of the revolvers to be filled with new rounds and, once they were full, he cut loose with them, pulling the triggers as swiftly as he could.

Against magical bullets forged by the power of the guns in his hands the webbing stood no more chance of clogging the barrels than ordinary webbing would. Like fire through tissue paper the demon's webbing parted and, shocked by this, Madam Spider was temporarily paralyzed. This would wear off eventually but eventually would not be soon enough. One after another the rounds pierced her body, doing the damage of bullets twice the caliber, defying all logic and once all twelve rounds had been spent all that was left was to see if it had the desired effect.

Defiantly the spider demon tried to remain standing, did her best to look as though she was far from defeated, but when she coughed up an unhealthy amount of her mildly luminescent blood her farce fell apart. The trembling came next and, when willpower alone was not enough, she collapsed to the ground, fighting with every breath for the life that was flowing out of her wounds.

"The male has proven stronger than This One," Madam Spider rasped through blood-coated lips. "Though it vexes This One, the male has won the right to both soul and power. Never once prove unworthy of them!"

With that the demon disintegrated into a cloud of black ash that then became concentrated in an orb of black light that floated over to him. Once it came within arm's reach it stopped, as if beckoning him to seize it and, while he was reluctant to accept it, the possibilities of what could happen without take it were too worrisome. Holstering his right revolver he reached out and took it, causing it to flare up with dark luminescence causing him to look away for a moment.

When he looked back what he held in his hand wasn't a black light orb but rather a long length of composite chain that looked like it could be mistaken for metal length of spider webbing. At either end of the chain there were hooks that to his mind resembled a spider's mandible complete with a nasty looking curved fang at the end. Though the chain didn't look like it was much more than fifteen feet in length, he somehow instinctively knew that it could be lengthened as far as the wielder wanted provided they had the magical or demonic energy needed.

Putting away the other revolver, he grasped the chain just below the metal mandibles, one end in one hand and the other in the other hand, giving each a practice twirl to see how they moved. Once he saw how they flowed, LITERALLY how they flowed, he felt knowledge that oddly had him eager to take it out for a test drive. Thus, with an almost playful chuckle, he began to whip the chains, striking out at targets he'd chosen at random as he did so. Every piece of stone or bone he struck shattered but, even after the metal mandible was no longer touching it, both seemed to give off an ominous black smoke that expanded the damage to the point of impact. Indeed, the surrounding material seemed to crumble as though it were being broken down on the molecular level, turning both into fine powder. With one final coordinated twirl he slammed both metal mandibles at the end of the chains into the ground, releasing a shockwave of black mist that shot out in every direction for a few feet before disappearing. Nevertheless everything that the black mist touched suffered similar yet not as potent damage as those things that came into direct contact with the metal mandibles.

"Not bad. Not bad at all!" he said with satisfaction at his newest acquisition.

With a moment's willing he drew the weapon within himself just as he realized he'd somehow done to his scimitars and his revolvers. In joining he learned of the chained hooks name and added it to the list alongside Nue no Gin, Praeteritum and Mellontikós.

Arachne.

 _ **Arkham's POV**_

 _Impressive,_ he thought as he shut down the simple scrying spell he'd been using to watch his creation. _While a low level gatekeeper and not an equal of Cerberus, he would not have won had his Devil Arms not decided to recognize him as their master._

He had been prepared to use one of his scripted excuses to leave Vergil's side so he could intervene but he was thankful that he didn't have to now. While he had no doubt that he would need to in the future in order to drop some clues for Dante to follow so that he could keep pace with his twin sibling, that didn't mean he could carelessly disappear too often. He might have convinced Vergil that he was worth keeping around due to his knowledge of Temen-ni-Gru and the arcane but it would only make the Son of Sparda suspicious if he disappeared too often. His script hinged on remaining by the hybrid's side right until the final barrier to the main seal chamber so that he could act out his 'death scene'. If he was removed from play beforehand something might go awry, ruining everything he'd been working towards.

Now with a new Devil Arm and the loyalty of the ones that'd been provided during the tests, the newly forged 'Son of Sparda' would grow stronger, allowing him to progress deeper into the tower. So long as he continued to grow in strength and fall not too far behind his 'siblings' he would stay as an observer rather than a babysitter.

It was as he thought on these things that one of the spells he'd cast along the route he and Vergil had taken to reach the top triggered, alerting him to the final member of the cast.

His wayward daughter Mary, who, without knowing it, had never left his gaze.

At first he merely kept an eye on her in order to ensure that nothing happened to her, but then it turned to being concerned that his activities might be leaked to the wrong people. However, when he settled on seizing Sparda's power for himself, he'd raised his level of surveillance, knowing that the blood that flowed through her veins was crucial to his success. When the time had finally come to bring all the pieces together he'd dropped news of his whereabouts where he knew she'd find them, as well as a rough route for her to take through the tower that was not beyond her ability to handle. The route she'd been given hadn't blatantly said it was the safest, or even contained hints that implied that, but rather he'd removed all information on other possible routes. Cautious girl that she'd become since starting on her path of being a demon hunter, she would stay to the route she knew rather than risk ones that she did not without good reason.

 _Still, it might be prudent to give her a bodyguard,_ he thought as he turned another page in his book. _She might be capable of managing the small fry demons but if she encounters any like Arachne… yes. Best to have the two of them meet up and ensure that they remain together._

"Looks like we have an uninvited guest," Vergil said, opening his eyes and raising his gaze.

"Is that so?" he asked, putting on the appearance of annoyed disinterest.

"A human, a woman," Vergil said without looking in his direction.

"I'm afraid I should ask the uninvited one to leave," he said as he closed his book and got to his feet. "That is what you want. Isn't it?"

When he received no reply he took that to be an affirmative rather than a negative.

"Actually, I happen to be acquainted with that woman," he said as he strode past his 'master'. "A storm is approaching."

Once he was clear he recalled his mental map of the tower's layout to determine the best spot to ambush her and send her down to young Alexander. It was something of a long fall she would have to take in order to be placed closer to Alexander but he knew that her favored weapon possessed a grappling hook, so that should lessen the risk to her. Once she met up with his surrogate Son of Sparda, though, the problem of ensuring that the two would remain close to one another was somewhat… complicated.

As a result of the ritual that'd claimed her mother's soul and the numerous demons she'd encountered during her training to become strong enough to kill him, Mary had developed a rather narrow-minded view of demons and devils. In the young girl's mind a moral bigotry against demons formed, making her believe them to be remorseless monsters unable to understand things like love or family. So deep was this belief that it didn't matter if she was dealing with a so-called pure demon or one that was half human because, to her, they all deserved to die. As such the moment Alexander displayed a nonhuman ability that couldn't be attributed to those arcane options available to humans, she would either try to kill the young man or abandon him.

Likely the former rather than the latter.

 _Then perhaps a simple curse is in order,_ he thought as continued to move to a point outside Vergil's immediate range of perception. _Something that would not require much power but would also ensure that Mary would be foolish to kill him or leave him behind._

It took him only a moment to pick an appropriate curse: the Nikola Motion curse.

It was indeed a relatively simple curse and, best of all, it was powered by the energies of those afflicted by it rather than an external source. The premise was that the two afflicted by the curse would, for the duration, share a sort of magical circulatory system. Much like how a disruption to the veins circulating blood throughout the human body would lead to weakness and then death unless the problem was fixed, so too would the curse harm those caught in it. If he recalled correctly those caught in the curse's grip could stray no further than fifty feet from one another before they began to feel weak. At seventy-five feet they would be unable to do more than crawl, and at one hundred feet… he would like to think that, through his contribution to her genes, that Mary would have enough intelligence to not prefer death over putting up with Alexander.

The choice made he found an out of the way corner of the room he'd entered and closed his eyes to mentally lock onto her location as well as determine the best ambush point.

Judging by the speed of her movements, she was not injured but rather was valuing stealth and caution over swift progress. A wise course of action with so little knowledge of what threats might be ahead of her. If she proceeded along her current route, she would soon come to the edge of a broken down balcony with only two routes of approach.

An ideal spot for her to check the status of her weapons and reload each of them for the next leg of her journey. If he dropped her from there it'd be an almost a straight drop down, with few stone outcroppings for her to grab hold of to keep her progress from being a complete loss. Even with the grappling hook in her rocket launcher there were few entrances past a certain point that would be within her reach. With a few simple trance spells he could likely make the demons on that level of the tower do what he wanted them to do and force her towards Alexander. Once they got to within a certain proximity the curse would trigger with a pre-recorded message to inform them of their new status and perhaps let Mary know that Alexander had not been born a Devil-Human hybrid. If he played it off as just another bit of his 'demonic villainy', it might even be enough to make her determined to help the young man just to foil his 'foul plan'.

He couldn't help but smile maliciously at his forming plan even as Mary came to a stop, signaling that she was about to tend to her weapons and tools. With a small tug at the power he'd accumulated over the years he teleported himself to her general area but not right in front of her since his performance needed to happen in a specific manner.

Watching her carefully, he waited until it looked like she'd finished with her rest and was about to leave before teleporting behind her, close to the edge.

"Well, well," he said, causing her to freeze in place even as her rage no doubt rose. "You've grown stronger." He made sure to say the word 'stronger' with a bit of mockery in order to fan the flames of anger within her.

"Go to hell!" Mary said, pointing her gun at him.

"You point a gun at me?" he asked with mild irritation and false pain. "Your own kin? Your dear papa?"

"The only family I ever had was my mother, and she's dead!" Mary replied with fury before firing her weapon.

Fortunately after his experience with Dante's dual weapons he was all too prepared and was able to teleport to the ceiling above her in the blink of an eye. Naturally she drew a second weapon and tried to reacquire him but the area they were in lent an echo to his voice, making pinpointing a source difficult.

"You break my heart," he said, keeping the feigned emotional pain present. "After all, it was I who gave you your name…"

He waited until she finally figured out where he was, aiming at him, before saying his final words and putting his plan into action.

"…My darling daughter!" he snarled before dropping his book onto her face to obscure her vision and to attach the curse to her.

Dropping from the ceiling, he landed in front of her, grabbed her left gun arm before flinging her over the edge while deftly catching his book like it was nothing. Stubborn as she'd always been Mary tried to shoot him even as she fell in the hopes of landing a telling blow. Unfortunately for her all she managed was a light cut on his right cheek, causing a speck of blood to flow momentarily before the power he'd gained over the years healed the minor wound. While he knew that Dante was close enough to perhaps intercept her, he'd taken the precaution with the curse to key it to Alexander's arcane signal so as to ensure it did not attach to just anyone.

 _Once she gets over his altered biology and accepts him as a fellow 'victim', the two of them should make for an able bodied pair to traverse the various levels before arriving at the final chamber,_ he thought as he turned to return to Vergil's side until he needed to make another appearance as Jester.

Once he became a god and wrested Kalina Ann back from the demon who stole her, he was sure Mary would calm down once their cherished one's soul was clad in new flesh. It would likely take a while before she ceased to hate him altogether and began to love him as she once had but he could wait. Once they were one big, happy family again ruling over the world, he would make young Alexander his daughter's personal bodyguard. It would give her some comfort to have a familiar face by her side and, should he suit her fancy sufficiently, he might even deign to allow the boy to become her suitor.

He would certainly be well above the mere humans that might approach her and more trustworthy than any demon who sought to take a step towards claiming his position.

The future was looking promising indeed!

 _ **Xander's POV**_

 _Man, it's so much easier getting through these demons with you guys fighting with me,_ he thought as he ducked under a scythe demon's swing only to shove a revolver barrel in its mouth and fire.

With the sudden absence of a head the demon's body turned to ash, collapsing to the floor and freeing him up to use Praeteritum to block the dash slice by the red scythe demon. A quick push off of his enemy's weapon, sending it back a couple of steps, allowed him to bring the gold revolver up again to put two rounds into its chest. Watching as it crumbled due to the grievous damage done to its torso by the powerful rounds, he quickly scoped out the area he was in to see if he had any more hostiles incoming.

Nothing.

 _Looks like it's all clear for now,_ he thought as he slid his revolver back into its shoulder holster and the scimitar back into its sheath at his waist.

Still, while he'd been having a bit of fun now that he actually stood a more or less fifty-fifty chance against the monsters that dwelled in the tower, he still hadn't caught up to Gun Girl. He was certain that she wouldn't have been able to get very deep on her bike with many of the doorways and walkways being of insufficient size to let her ride through or on them. So either the girl was a lot faster on her feet than he thought or he'd taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way, taking him away from her. He could, of course, backtrack and take another route but that could wind up putting him even further behind her.

 _Better to keep heading for the top,_ he thought as he continued towards the doorway ahead of him. _Situations like these, the main event always happens at the top… or sometimes the bottom if there's a whole hell vibe going on._

For a moment he was caught up in indecision before he just shrugged and continued on his way, figuring he'd probably run into someone along the way who could fill him in on what was going on. As he pushed his way through the door he came upon an open balcony that showed that night had since fallen on the city since he'd entered the tower. Oddly enough it looked like a little less than half of the city still had power because the lights were on and that sorta meant that people might actually still be around. Surely any sane person would've head for the hills the second a demon showed up and it didn't make sense that they'd stick around unless some force was keeping the demons close to the tower.

It'd also explain why the military wasn't all over this place because there should've been some sort of military base close enough to the city to show up within a couple of hours. Choppers, maybe fighter jets, and definitely a few Army or Marine teams sent in to investigate what the hell was going on, but so far he wasn't seeing any of that. From what he'd seen it was almost like the military was staying out of the city and taking a 'wait and see' approach to the entire situation. Normally he was all for the wait and see approach since it was pretty safe and sometimes very smart, but he still believed that he was staring down the barrel of an apocalypse, so leaving the bad guys alone was not a good idea.

If not for the fact that he and Gun Girl would be at ground zero, he'd be willing to back just nuking the entire city to get rid of the problem, but since that wasn't the case he'd make do with what he had.

It was just as he was about to turn away from the balcony his ears caught the sound of a small motor going and something that sounded familiar but that he couldn't put a name to. Looking around he saw nothing at first but when he looked up he was more than a little surprised to see the very teenage girl he'd been trying to catch up since getting into the tower. She looked to be descending towards him, using a grappling line attached to her rocket launcher, and in doing so she was giving him an upskirt view that'd have been a lot more risqué if she hadn't been wearing spandex biker shorts beneath it.

Still, she had a nice ass from what he could see.

"Guess it's right what they say," he said as he took a couple steps back to give her a clear landing area. "Good things do come to those who wait."

Honestly, despite her chilly words outside, he'd kinda hoped to get a one liner in return from her like Buffy would've given him, but instead the moment her feet touched the ground she tried to shoot him. Fortunately for him demon hunting inspired quick reflexes, so he was able to evade the spray of semi-auto fire from what looked to be a Škorpion submachine gun without getting hit. That didn't stop her from bringing around her CZ-75 handgun around to make good of her second chance forcing him to duck behind a stone statue for cover.

"Okay! I know I'm not exactly a ladies man but WHAT THE FUCK!?" he yelled even as fire peppered his cover. "Why are you shooting at me?!"

"Ran into a guy a couple floors up. Had similar taste in clothes and the same hair color," Gun Girl replied even as he heard her trying to walk to a clear line of sight. "Turns out he can take a bullet to the head and not die. Since no human can do that, that means he's a demon. So you are, too. Do the math."

"Yeah! Like that's logical!" he snarked before taking out his silver revolver. "You ever hear of this new invention? It's all the rage these days! It's called HAIR DYE! If you go around killing everyone with white hair you're going to be killing more innocent people than demons!"

"How many 'innocent people' could make it this far into a demon infested tower?" she asked rhetorically even as she cleared his stone protection.

Diving out of his cover into a roll he brought his revolver up, only intent on shooting her guns from her hands so that he could try to talk his way out of his current predicament. Too bad the trick that seemed so doable in the movies was decidedly harder in real life, especially when he wanted to avoid getting hit himself. Sure, he was pretty sure his newly upgraded body could take a few hits but he'd have a little problem convincing him of his former humanity if he shrugged off a couple of slugs. Keeping himself moving as swiftly as he could, he held his fire so he could be sure to only hit her guns but firsthand he was finding out just how good she was with the demon killing.

 _Don't get me wrong, her speed and reflexes are pure human rather than Slayer grade, but she's definitely making the most of what she's got,_ he thought as Gun Girl worked to use her guns to maneuver him into a proverbial corner. _Wonder who her teacher was._

After a minute or so he concluded that trying to do the whole 'shoot the gun from the hand' routine was too out of his league so he holstered his revolver and brought out Arachne. With two quick twirls he flung one of the ends to the right of Gun Girl, not with the intent of hitting her but rather to use a move he'd come up with two demon fights ago. As soon as the mandible hook latched onto his true target he triggered the retract function on the chain, pulling him forward at a faster speed then most would expect. Just as he reached the desired point he willed Arachne to vanish, allowing him to change his course until he successfully tackled Gun Girl to the ground, both arms restrained at the wrist.

He was just about to try to talk some sense into her when a sigil of some kind faded into existence, glowing with a green light, but before he could even verbalize his question it was too late. He only caught a glimpse of an arc of electricity before his mind was thrown for a complete loop, making input from his five senses spotty at best.

"I trust I have your attention now?" came a voice that he couldn't recall hearing before but for some reason his instincts were connecting it to pain. "It has come to my attention that the two of you, my darling daughter and my failed experiment, have come to this tower intent on thwarting my plans. This is something I can no longer afford to tolerate. As such I have decided to give you each something of a handicap.

"The two of you are now bound by the Nikola curse. What this means is that the two of you now share a sort of energy circulatory system. Remain close together and you will not be harmed," the male voice said with the typical super villain arrogance. "Stray a ways apart from one another and you will weaken. Stray too far and… well, I'm sure you can guess what comes after weaken. I'd avoid letting your new 'partner' fall down any holes if I were you. Have fun, children!"

With that his input was snapped back and a mild headache was making him want to talk to Mister Ming the Merciless and vent his displeasure. Sitting up from the cold stone floor, he looked around only to see that Gun Girl moaning on the ground, implying that she'd had a rougher time of the message than he had. Doing his best to compartmentalize the pain, he got to his feet and walked over to his 'partner' to see if she was okay. If the curse being cast only gave him a mild headache, he could only presume a normal human would feel like something was trying to split their skulls in half.

"Wish I had some Tylenol with me," he said as he offered her a hand to help her up.

Her response to his statement of kindness?

A bullet to the head.

While momentarily disorienting, it wasn't any more painful than stubbing his toe and whether the bullet was either dissolved in his head or pushed back through the wound, it didn't matter. Stumbling back a few steps in shock of the experience, he reached up with one hand and lightly touched the wound feeling the blood as well as the flesh knitting itself back together rapidly.

 _Well THAT was a new experience!_ he thought. "Well that's a fine how do you do! If you wanted to lounge in the bliss of your migraine, you coulda just said so."

"Fuck you!" G-Girl growled as she got up from the ground.

"Sorry but I'm not that easy," he said with a bit of humor. "I insist on dinner and movie before putting out."

"Like it'd ever be desperate enough for a date to ask a demon out," Gun Girl growled, making it to her feet before looking about.

Watching her look for and find the guns she'd dropped when the curse had hit, he had to wonder what precisely had happened to the girl to give her such a mad on for demons. Based on what he'd heard during the curse casting, the big bad of this adventure was her dear old papa, so on a scale of one to ten that was pretty crappy. If whatever happened between the two of them was bad enough to get her to come all the way to hunt him down then it would certainly explain the hate fest she had going on. Still, he wasn't the sort to just ignore someone when they said that a curse had been placed on him so he had to get the reality of the situation through her thick skull.

"Dating aside, it looks like we're stuck with each other until we can break the Nikola curse he put on us," he said, trying to sound reasonable in the hopes that it'd rub off on her.

"I'll never believe a single word he says ever again!" G-Girl growled with true venom before slamming her two guns back into their holster.

 _Definitely something epically bad between the two of them,_ he thought as he watched her walk away. _Guess she's gonna have to learn through experience. Hope it isn't too bad to get through._

Watching her walk further and further away, he tried to mentally calculate just how far was too far as far as the curse was concerned. It was at roughly five basketball hoop heights before he felt like he was beginning to come off a serious sugar high. As it reached seven and a half he could no longer stand up, thus being forced to drop to his knees. Deciding that this was proof enough, he crawled after the obstinate woman before she got so far away that it'd take everything he has left to just stay breathing.

"Now… do you… believe?" he asked out with more effort than it should've taken.

For a moment he thought that she just might continue onwards even with the evidence to support the existence of the curse, but much to his relief she came to a stop. Instead of turning around to make their recovery that much quicker, she apparently had chosen to wait until he came to her, making him flash back for a moment to Cordelia. Whether it was during the time they'd been dating or the times both before as well as after, the head cheerleader had always made him work hard even if he didn't need to.

When they were less than ten hoop heights apart his strength returned and he was able to climb back to his feet before walking the rest of the way under his own power.

"Look, I don't like this situation any more than you do but, sucky or not, it is what it is," he said, keeping his cool. "Until we find a way to break the curse we just gotta work together and do our best not to get separated. Or is that too hard for the big bad demon killer?"

"Fine. But slow me down or screw things up and I'm going to find out if killing you'll break the curse. Understand?" Gun Girl asked, showing she was dead serious.

"No problem!" he said showing his sincerity. "I have zero desire to die and a ton of desire to take the big bad down to save the world."

To this she just nodded her head before walking away.

Assuming that she hadn't changed her mind on the spot and wanted to slowly kill herself, he assumed that she wanted him to follow her and just didn't want to tell him out loud.

 _I can just tell: we're either gonna become the best of pals or we're going to kill each other._ He fell into step behind her, staying far enough back to keep an eye out for trouble.

Past experience thankfully had him a bit optimistic since, back in Sunny-D, it usually wound up being the former.

He couldn't help but grin a bit in response to that.

 _ **Mary 'Lady' Arkham's POV**_

"What did my father mean when he called you his failed experiment?" she asked as the two of them carefully continued the corridor.

She wouldn't take anything 'Xander' said at face value but even a small hint of what that bastard was up to could be learned it'd be worth talking to her 'partner'.

"Well, assuming he wasn't talking complete bullshit, then he's the one behind my new upgrades," Xander replied from ahead of her after she'd insisted that he take point. "Before waking up in this city someone was putting me through a gauntlet of demon killing. Back then I was one hundred percent human, without the white hair or the super powers."

"He turned you into a demon? Why?" she asked, trying to figure out the purpose behind the bastard's actions.

"Technically I think it's half-demon,' Xander replied with a shrug. "Still got a human soul and don't have any nasty impulses telling me to do bad things so far. If I was all the way demon I wouldn't have followed you into the tower. I woulda made tracks from the city and headed back to Sunnydale."

"You live on a Hellmouth?" she asked with some surprise.

While her focus had mostly been physical training, her mentor had taken some time to give her the lay of the supernatural landscape. Aside from the broad strokes of the major players, he also pointed out the locations around the world where demonic activity was particularly prolific. One of those places was a small town in California by the ridiculous name of Sunnydale that was the location of a dimensional weak spot commonly referred to as a Hellmouth. While unopened, it still put out demonic energy that attracted demons wishing to become stronger as well as dark magic users looking to tap into the sinful energy to boost their own innate core. Her teacher had also implied that the Hellmouth could react to the thoughts and desires of humans living on it, turning desires into reality if the former was strong enough.

As for the humans who lived on it, they usually remained blissfully unaware of the monsters who prowled in their midst either due to the Hellmouth's demonic energy or because someone worked to keep them in the dark. Even then, though, if only on a subconscious level, people knew that there was something dangerous about their town. In response they built numerous places of worship and made sure they had ample property set aside for cemeteries to deal with the daily death toll.

To hear that someone not much older than her lived on one and was aware of the truth but hadn't been killed by the demons was something of a surprise.

"Yep! Born and raised there," Xander replied, looking over his shoulder with a grin. "Didn't find out it was a Hellmouth until a little over two years ago, though. After I did I couldn't just let things go back to the way they used to be, not with people all around me getting picked off like sheep with no one else the wiser. Hooked up with a demon hunter who'd come to town and I've been fighting ever since. Gotta admit, though, that this IS a step up from what I usually handle, but the upgrades are helping with that."

"You don't care that someone shoved demon parts into you?" she asked, a little dumbfounded and more than a little disgusted.

"Kinda hard to when you don't know what kind of demon parts you got inside you," he replied casually as they reached a corner. "One of the first things the demon hunter told me was that not all species of demon are evil. Some are neutral and some are even benign. Until I can put a name to my demon side, I'm gonna try not to get too worked up about it. I don't feel much different than I used to and the new features will be a big help with the demon hunting back home."

"Your demon hunter friend must one of those idealists then, 'cause there's no such thing as a good demon except a dead demon." she said, not bothering to hide her hate.

"If we were talking about vampires I'd agree with you, but G-man knows what he's talking about," he said, not willing to sign on to her way of thinking. "He's like a dusty old library of books on legs. If he doesn't know it he knows which book to look in."

"Whatever," she said, dismissing the point of view as bullshit.

She'd met one of the more idealistic demon hunters once with her mentor and her sensei shared her opinion of the person. While the person did know the written facts, their interpretation of the information was definitely influenced by the rose-tinted glasses that they were wearing. Her mentor had said that it was one of the pathetic paths that some demon hunters went down when they got too afraid of the truth or got tired of the endless battle. They began looking for 'peaceful solutions' to the friction that existed between demon and human, believing that it was always possible for an accord to be reached by two races capable of reason and logic.

As far as she and her teacher were concerned, those types either wound up dead or woke up to the truth if they somehow survived.

"So… any idea what your dad is trying to do here? Aside from wrecking a couple of blocks of city real estate and raise a broken down tower, that is," he said, peeking around the corner before giving her the all clear signal.

"No. All I know is this place is called Temen-ni-gru and there's some great demonic power source in here," she replied, a little less than happy about her lack of intel. "He plans on claiming it for himself and using it to take over the world."

"Ah! The classic take over the world plan!" he said with an amused chuckle. "Better than the 'End the world' plan that we mostly deal with back home. Also gives us a bit of leg room to work with."

"What do you mean?" she asked, not seeing what he was talking about.

"Well, if he was looking to end the world, all he needs to do is toss a lot of dark mojo around or open a Hellmouth. Easy peasey," he replied as they proceeded around the corner. "But if he's looking to conquer the world, he's gotta be more precise. Take out the top half of every country's government, destroy every military base and defang the nukes so they can't be used. Remember, the last time badass demons walked the Earth out in the open, only mages had the heavy firepower and that stuff had limits. Today? We've got bombs capable of turning a city this size into a crater. Definite game changer."

"So you're saying that because he's not going to destroy everything, we'll have chances to strike back and kill him?" she said as she began to grasp what her 'partner' was saying.

"Yep. Plus he's still gonna have the basic wants of any human male, so anyplace that has what he wants is probably gonna be spared or just given a light toasting," he said, carefully making his way down the corridor. "Takes time to line up your shots for something like that. As long as we don't drag our feet, we can keep things from getting too nasty."

"You think we'll still have a chance once he gets this power?" she asked, wondering if Xander knew the scale of the power she was talking about.

"Doesn't matter really how much power he gets, he has to learn how to use it right before he can really be a threat," he replied, sounding certain of his words. "If all he's been using up until now is parlor tricks plus a few gimmicks, then he's gonna need time to get a handle on the power up."

A bit of an optimistic point of view but not one she was beyond giving some consideration to for the time being. It was true that, according to what she'd been taught, mages who attempted to gain large amounts of power couldn't handle it immediately unless they underwent rigorous training beforehand. Even then, more often than not, they found much to their horror that they'd overestimated their capabilities and wound up being destroyed by the new power they sought. She wouldn't shed a tear if that bastard of a father turned out to be one of the latter but she feared that the monster she shared blood with had been careful with his preparations for this scheme.

Still, if they could get to him before he claimed this great power, it would be a moot point.

As they reached the door at the end of the corridor, though, something happened to shelve her thoughts on the subject for the time being.

A loud, inhuman roar that could only have come from a demon and a moment later a thunderous impact on the ground that shook the stone beneath them, enough that they had to brace themselves.

"I think that might be something we want to look into," Xander said after turning to look her in the eye.

"Right. Lead the way," she said, not willing to show her back to the latest victim of her father just yet.

Keeping him in front of her would ensure that he soaked up the bulk of the damage sent their way and would make it impossible for him to stab her in the back.

MAYBE once she saw him do something to seriously compromise her father's ambitions or do something willingly that no demon would ever do under any circumstances… MAYBE then she'd begin to trust him.

Not before.

 _ **Xander's POV**_

"Well, there's something you don't see every day," he said as he looked at the corpse of the demonic whale he'd seen circling the tower earlier.

Without a doubt it was what had caused the ground shaking they had felt but he had to wonder what could've taken it down. While he could only see the majority of the head area, there weren't any visible battle wounds and anyone attacking something so large would definitely have aimed for the head. Aside from the chest area, where most hearts were located, the head was the most logical place to shoot if you wanted to do some real damage.

So what was the cause of death?

He got his answer a few seconds later when the sole visible crimson eye bulged outwards just a little but enough to be considered unnatural. When it happened again he pulled his shotgun from the improvised back holster he'd acquired from the gun shop and Gun Girl brought her CZ-75 up, both of them ready to fire at the slightest hint of a threat. Again the demonic eye bulged but this time much more than before and blood began to seep out from the edges of the eye socket until a point of metal pierced the membrane and then carved an unnatural slit into it. With a spray of gore something human sized leapt out and landed behind the two of them but never once escaped their aim. With motion no longer an obstacle he could clearly see that the form that'd exited the large demon looked to be human but had white hair like he did and held a sword the rough dimensions of a claymore sword. However this sword looked like it'd been made by a demon, or at least by someone hunted demons, so any similarities were purely in terms of measurements. Covered in blood as the newcomer was, it was also possible to spot two heavily customized M1911 handguns sitting in holsters at the guy's lower back.

Considering the similarities in appearance, he felt it was safe to say that whoever had given him his upgrades had done so either to copy this guy or at the very least used this guy as a source of inspiration.

Either way he wanted to know more.

"So this is the next stage?" the guy asked, sounding like he was irritated about something.

"Wait." Lady said, lining up her shot better with the newcomer's head.

"If you're asking for a date-" the guy said before turning around and trying to push G-Girl's gun away but to no effect, "-forget it. Cause I make it a point not to go out with women who shoot me in the head. Besides, looks like you already have a boyfriend."

While he wouldn't argue that under different circumstances he wouldn't be adverse to dating G-Girl, they weren't boyfriend and girlfriend. They were barely partners and that was only because of the curse. If it wasn't for that he had no doubt that Gun Girl would've killed him or lost him as soon as possible.

"He's not my boyfriend," G-Girl said with distaste though it was hard to tell if it was because of the notion or the fact that the guy was drenched in blood. "We've got similar goals, that's all. As for you, I really don't care for guys who stink of blood."

In response to this the guy looked like he was sniffing himself, like someone who'd forgotten to put on deodorant before spending the day outdoors in hot weather. He was about to take this opportunity to ask for a name and maybe fist for some additional info when his Scooby-senses started tingling, prompting him to shift his aim away from the newcomer.

The reason for this were the numerous dark shadows that were venturing decidedly too far from any possible source, becoming much larger than the local light sources were capable of creating. One by one forms arose from the shadows before taking on the form of the black robed scythe demons and lots of them. The new guy and G-girl were quick to act taking out the closest ones before going back to back, complimenting each other's shots and almost seamlessly shifting their aim to account for every threat's movements. As for him he did his best to keep out of their line of fire while using his shotgun to force back any demon that was getting too close to him as well as the duo. Fortunately for him there were so many of the scythe wielding demons that sometimes a single shot from him wound up doing damage to two or more demons.

"So who are you guys?" the new guy asked, never losing his shooting tempo.

"Name's Xander and I got an invite to this little party I just couldn't turn down," he replied even though he had a feeling the newcomer only cared about G-Girl's response.

"And you, lady?" the newcomer asked confirming that fact.

"My reasons for being here are none of your business and as for my name, I don't have one." G-Girl replied as she continued shooting.

 _Doesn't have a name? Everyone has a name,_ he thought before his shotgun ran dry, causing him to holster it before taking out both halves of Nue no Gin. _Even after those fucking vamps killed Jesse I didn't throw away my name. Even after my parents treated me like crap I didn't throw away my name. So why did she?_

"Okay, then what should I call you?" New Guy asked, not letting one denial shake his curiosity.

"I don't care," G-Girl replied with mild irritation at what she probably considered an unimportant distraction. "Whatever you want."

"Whatever, lady," New Guy said, sounding a little disappointed before he leapt off the battlefield to the staircase leading back into the tower. "I'll leave this to you two. Cuz I don't want to miss the party."

"Who counted on you anyway?" G-Girl muttered even as she adapted to the lack of someone watching her back.

Moving forward to fill the void left by New Guy, he admitted that he didn't know the person well enough to count on him but that didn't mean he liked having two less guns in the fight. From all appearances it looked like they'd walked into a preferred killing ground for the demons because they were coming in large numbers that he had not encountered since he'd entered the tower. While he could probably make the same sort of leap that New Guy had made, G-Girl couldn't and he very much doubted she'd let him get away with picking her up before making the leap. So the only option that left was killing all the demons that came until they stopped appearing or until the herd thinned enough that they could make a break for the door.

Time passed and he tried his best to time his shots so that when one revolver needed to be reloaded there were still three or four shots available in the other. As for G-Girl, she was doing the same with her shots but, since she didn't have an automatic reload system based on magic like he did, she needed time to pop out old mags before sliding in new ones. It puzzled him a bit, though, that she hadn't run out of bullets already because, from what he could see, she only had a few places on her where she could store spare mags. Given that it took one to three bullets to take down a single scythe demon, she should've been burning through them pretty quickly.

Something to ask about once they had the time since it'd be nice if he could arrange something similar for his shotgun.

When he noticed his partner beginning to move towards the staircase, he judged this to be because she was ready to leave and so he followed suit. Indeed, he kept himself between the demons and Gun Girl so she didn't have as much trouble reloading and wasn't forced to discard spent weapons in favor of loaded ones. Closer and closer they came until the demons were clumped together and, when he heard a shifting coming from her, he stepped to the side…

…just in time to see a rocket fly by striking the clump in the center and detonating.

In one fell swoop the demons were finished, with only one or two stragglers who proved that they possessed sufficient intelligence to know when to retreat.

Holstering his revolvers, he took out his shotgun before loading in fresh shells in preparation for the next fight. By his estimation he had two more full reloads before he would be done dry and wouldn't be able to get more until they left the tower.

 _I don't suppose you can pass on your magic reloading ability to the shotgun?_ he thought towards Nue no Gin.

 _Not easily. I would require at least three of your human days in close proximity to the shotgun to imbue it with my power,_ Nue no Gin thought in response. _During that time I would be unavailable for use._

In other words it'll have to wait until the current crisis has passed.

Something to keep in mind both for his shotgun and any other firearms he intended to add to his arsenal in the future.

"Well, that was a workout," he said with mock exertion since he didn't really feel fatigued at the moment. "You need a breather or do we get going?"

"You can rest. I'M moving on," G-Girl replied, making sure her rocket launcher was secure on her shoulder before beginning to walk up the stairs.

"Aye, aye, ma'am," he said, channeling a bit of Soldier Boy with those words.

He wished he knew a way to break the ice with her so that she didn't act so cut off from him but all he could come up with was tossing out jokes and funny one liners. Considering how much anger Gun Girl had in her for her dad, he was pretty sure that any humor he tried to send her way would be burnt to a crisp before it had much of an effect.

Until something happened to dim her fury or he found a way to put her more at ease where he was concerned, that'd work all he could do was support her as best he could.

If nothing else he hoped that his displays of determination to aid her would convince the teenage girl that he was a true partner.


	4. Baggage and Blood

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted materials contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and/or associated companies. I make no profit from this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this in the future. I write because it's fun and because there are those who enjoy reading my stories. Therefore I sincerely hope not to get sued for writing this story. I am not rich so whatever I wound up paying would probably not cover even half of the legal fees of the person/company suing me.

 _ **Mary 'Lady' Arkham's POV**_

"I wonder how far we are from the top," Xander asked as they ascended a flight of spiraling stairs.

"Probably very far. From outside this place is the tallest building in the entire city and at best we're getting to about the halfway point," she replied, sparing a glance behind them to make sure they weren't being snuck up on.

"Damn. Well, at least this'll be a story to tell my friends back home!" he said before his expression turned less than optimistic. "Assuming they don't kill me for not heading straight home instead of heading into the tower."

"They don't think you could handle yourself here?" she asked, mildly interested as she returned her gaze forward.

"Back before the upgrades I wasn't any stronger or faster than your average high school kid. The demon hunter I worked with was pretty busy so he couldn't give lessons and then there were my normal school classes," he replied as the top of the stairs came within sight. "A vamp or two I could handle by myself. Zombies weren't a problem. But put me up against anything really tough and I'd die after the first blow."

"So it's not that they don't think you can handle yourself but that they'd think it was suicide to enter the tower?" she asked, understanding his explanation.

"Actually… before I got hijacked they were trying to shove me out of the fighting altogether. From their point of view I had no skills and wasn't strong enough to fight without getting hurt," he replied, sounding like he wanted to defy the path others were trying to force upon him.

Thinking on the matter herself, she had to admit that in some cases it was for the best that those without the aptitude for demon hunting should remain off the battlefield. Even if their spirit, their resolve, was as strong as any warrior's, if they lacked the necessary skills or physical strength then it would all be for naught. In most cases both qualities could be improved upon through studying and physical training but there were those who didn't improve much at all no matter how hard they worked at it. It was just one of the harsh realities that some people just weren't cut out for field work when it came to fighting demons.

Still, if Xander had survived on Hellmouth all his life and had fought beside an experienced demon hunter for the last two years, then he had to have something going for him. No demon hunter, no matter how skilled, could fight the enemy while also protecting a useless groupie, or at least not for very long. One of the last things her teacher had told her was to never let any new allies go on a hunt with her until she was sure that they could handle themselves. Demons weren't known for giving second chances to wannabes and, if an experienced hunter had too many people to keep track of and protect, sooner or later they'd forget about one, leading to injury as well as death.

For the demon hunter Xander worked with, along with other members of the group, to push him out, thinking he was useless, was a disservice to him and spoke ill of them.

A year or so ago she'd encountered another demon hunter on a hunt who'd been rather condescending towards her even though she'd been hunting herself for over a year. It'd been irritating to have to deal with that hunter but what'd made it even worse was the fact that the killer of demons really knew what they were doing. The arrogance they had didn't influence their work and that allowed them to kill their prey quite efficiently.

Still, she'd made a point of asking about other demon hunters so she could avoid the hunting grounds of the ones she was most likely to interact poorly with.

"If you didn't have the skills then it was their responsibility to fix that with training, not push you out," she said as they reached the top of the stairs, then set foot into an open area. "In the fight against the demons the human race needs more soldiers, not less."

"You're preaching to the choir here, lady," he said, completely in agreement with her. "It's why I'm kinda glad I got these upgrades. Now they can't say I shouldn't fight because I'll get killed or can't hold my own in a fight."

She could understand that but at the same time she didn't trust the person who'd given Xander those upgrades. She was sure that her father had something in mind for the Californian, even after labeling the teen a failed experiment. She had been hunting him ever since her mentor had judged her good enough to hunt demons on her own and this was the first time she'd arrived anywhere where he was still in the area.

She had to consider the possibility that her being there was also a part of some scheme she couldn't see the scope of yet.

 _He won't win! I won't let him!_ she thought before the floor beneath her trembled as though something heavy had been dropped.

When another tremble swiftly followed the first and then another, she realized that the trembling was happening at regular intervals that were too consistent for stone falling from damaged areas to be the cause.

No, it was more like footsteps.

Footsteps belonging to big, heavy feet.

"Why do I get the feeling we'll be getting a fee fi fo fum moment soon?" Xander asked, likely rhetorically, as he zeroed in on the source of the footsteps.

The snow haired teen's words proved prophetic because soon a form emerged from a large cave up ahead that had her wondering if Temen-ni-gru operated under scientific rules or magical rules. Indeed, since she'd entered the tower and begun her journey upwards, she'd found that the interior did not always match the dimensions of the exterior. If she had to describe it she would have to say that whatever power the tower possessed involved space as well as perhaps time magic. As a result, its interior was able to hold a great deal more than if the structure had been built using conventional human means. That made it possible for seemingly bottomless chasms to exist as well as tall structures that should've pierced the top of Temen-ni-gru visibly from the outside but she hadn't seen anything before.

As such, the presence of a cave inside of the tower wasn't a total surprise but what was emerging from it was indeed more than a little shocking.

While vaguely humanoid in composition, the demon looked like someone had collected a wide assortment of rocks, boulders and stalagmites and then arranged them to form a statue. The statue looked powerful, durable and unmistakably evil in appearance but it was also slow moving, being only marginally swifter than a turtle. It came to a stop soon after it finished exiting its cave and looked at the area before focusing its gaze on both her and Xander.

"S'nork remember smell. Smell of Sparda. Smell of TRAITOR!" the stone giant bellowed with anger before slamming its right fist into the ground almost up to the elbow joint.

What happened next had her quickly bringing both her handguns up ready to fire because, while seeing S'nork pull the buried half of its arm out of the ground was to be expected, what came with it was decidedly not. Clenched tightly in the demonic hand of stone was a large hammer that looked very much like the maul in form, with a large hammer head on one end while the other end had a spike that looked like it could pierce clean through all but the thickest of bodies. It even looked to be too large for S'nork to wield one handed and this was proven when the stone giant took hold of it with his other hand once it finished clearing the stone floor.

"S'nork never forget TRAITOR! NEVER FORGIVE!" S'nork yelled as it approached the two of them. "S'nork SMASH! BASH! KILL! RRAAGGHH!"

With speed that she had most certainly not thought it capable of it brought the maul up over its head and then brought it down with clearly lethal intent. However, while her mind might've been slow to act, her body had memories of its own and reacted instantly to the incoming threat by diving off to the side before peppering the giant with bullets. She kicked herself as she watched sparks marking the bullets' point of impact but no visible damage that she could see.

Of course bullets couldn't hurt stone. She thought before holstering both guns and bringing her secret weapon to bear on the threat: Her rocket launcher that she named after her mother, both as a tribute as well as a reminder of what she had to do.

The Kalina Ann.

Dodging once more to keep from getting smushed, she brought the launcher up and fired.

THIS had a better result than the bullets but only in that it did some actual damage as she watched the shattered pieces of stone fall to the ground, accompanied by a bellow of pain. This filled her with confidence that, with a few efficient shots, she could take the giant down without too much trouble.

THEN that confidence got reduced by a third when she watched the stone bits that'd fallen off the giant stir, rise up off the ground and then refuse to the main body.

"Hahahahahaha! S'nork not smash easy!" S'nork said with cocky confidence. "You smash, you bash, you DIE!"

Not the most eloquent way of putting it but accurate nonetheless.

"Guess this guy's got some pretty tough skin," Xander said with a bit of humor as he pulled out a length of dark chain from seemingly nowhere. "Fortunately for us we got the tools to take care of that."

With two high speed twirls of the chain it was flung towards the stone giant's right arm, hitting it square on and, while the force behind the blow did indeed break off some stone, it was what happened afterwards that encouraged her to think it was the right weapon for the job. Even when the end of the chain was pulled back to Xander's hand a light black mist lingered around the wound, causing even more of the giant's arm to fall off to the ground. When she waited to see if the broken off rocks would rise back up to reattach themselves it did happen but not all the stones successfully managed to reattach to the main body. They seemed to wobble a bit where they tried to reattach but then fell back down to the ground, as though whatever force was supposed to merge it with the main body was unable to bridge the gap.

"Sparda hurt S'nork! S'NORK HURT SPARDA!" S'nork roared showing only minimal reduction in range of movement with regards to his right arm.

With a swing of the maul the giant tried to smush Xander but, much like her, the teenager proved to be smart enough to get out of the way. However what she hadn't anticipated was that, instead of just leaving a hammer-shaped impression in the ground with surrounding cracks, what they got were numerous stone spikes shooting up out of the ground. Their emergence did not appear guided but rather were completely random, spreading out about six or seven feet. However, in her opinion, the randomness only made it more dangerous since, if it had a visible target, then it would be easier to evade.

"O-kay… definitely not gonna stand anywhere near where that hammer comes down," Xander said, shaking off his stare at the power of the giant's maul.

"No shit," she muttered even as she lined up another shot before firing off another rocket, aiming for the face of S'nork.

This proved to be only partially effective since, while not the fastest of demons, S'nork proved to be fast enough to turn what should've been a direct hit into glancing blow to the side of the face. Nevertheless it perfectly distracted the giant demon, allowing Xander to spin both ends of the chain rapidly before flinging them at the right shoulder, doing double the damage that had been done before. THIS had the positive side effect of making S'nork let go of one end of the maul, making it decidedly harder for the demon to use.

Or so she thought.

In a move she hadn't seen coming S'nork began stamping on the ground in both pain as well as rage, but instead of merely doing meaningless damage it had another side effect.

Tri-legged stone spikes about the size of a football crawled out of the point of impact where the foot had stamped into the ground. Numbering three in total, they skittered towards both her as well as Xander with clear signs of hostility that had her putting some distance between her and them immediately.

Not wanting to waste rockets on such small targets, she slung her Kalina Ann over her shoulder before bringing out her CZ-75 and submachine gun. Thankfully, unlike S'nork, the spawned minions were much more susceptible to her weaker weapons, dying after thirty seconds or so of sustained fire.

Turning to Xander, she could see that, while she had been dealing with the minions, he had been working diligently to keep S'nork occupied. Surprisingly enough the giant was still able to use his maul to impressive effectiveness even with only one functional arm but there was enough of a wind up before the slam that a surprise attack with it was impossible. Sadly it looked like the stone giant wasn't going to give up on the spawning of minions anytime soon since, almost like clockwork, every time Xander managed to land a blow with his hooked chains S'nork tantrumed up some minions. Thus her role and that of her… partner… were clearly defined: she would keep the minions off of him while he chipped away at S'nork with his dark hook chains.

Again and again damage was done to the stone giant until the time came to deliver the finishing blow. With a flare up of the weapon's power Xander leapt into the air, spinning like a top while letting the darkly glowing hooked chains spin wide like some kind of demonic weed whacker. Even when it started to impact on S'nork's body it lost none of its steam and neither did it bend overmuch with the impact. As a result it managed to chew through the giant's stone body, managing to cleave all the way through the demon's body, causing it to drop in two pieces, sending out minor tremors upon impact.

"S'nork…lose? S'nork weak. You take power. Demon law clear," S'nork said as the life began to fade causing its body to fall apart. "Show all power of S'Nork's soul."

With that what could be considered to be the core of S'nork's body fell apart, leaving only a brownish mass of energy floating through the air towards Xander. Upon becoming grasped in Xander's hand, the brown mass of light transformed into a maul more size appropriate to him and bearing a strong resemblance to S'nork's full sized one. A few practice swings before slamming the head down, causing spikes to surge up out of the ground with a bit more control than S'nork had managed, going in a rough straight line ahead of him.

"Well this ought to be fun to use," Xander said with a look of satisfaction on his face.

 _Fun?_ She rolled her eyes. _If I ever needed proof that he's a typical human guy, this pretty much clinches it._

Boys and their toys.

 _ **Xander's POV**_

 _If it wasn't for the fact that I have NEVER picked a fight like this before, this might actually be fun,_ he thought as he proceeded along the route that he and G-Girl had chosen. _I mean, I got a serious body upgrade, I've got some cool weapons and getting experience fighting things that makes the demons in Sunnyhell look like trick or treaters._

Still, he couldn't shake off the truth that he was in the middle of some serious shit and that if he took things too lightly, it could mean the end of the world.

Still, everyone had coping mechanisms to deal with stressful situations and his was to focus on the positive side of things. Sure, there was a good chance he was going to come across someone or something that would be able to hurt him to a degree that his healing factor wouldn't be able to cope with it but it was a safe bet that such baddies would stand out. After all, in every TV show and movie he'd ever seen, there was always something special about the real badasses that set them apart from the unremarkable minions. Whether it was the abundance of muscles or the custom gear, there was always something to tell you that the person you spotted was NOT someone you wanted to mess with. So long as he didn't try to take on someone like that without backup, he wouldn't have to worry about being shown where the limits of his healing factor were.

It wasn't until he heard footsteps ahead that he gave the hand signal to be cautious and prepared before continuing onward, his gold revolver ready to fire. Without knowing what sort of enemy was ahead he figured it'd be best to attack from a distance rather than get up close, since he could think of several situations when mixing up all personal-like would not be a smart idea.

Pushing open the door the two of them entered a smooth corridor, with only one other way in and that was a door at the other end. However what attracted his attention the most was the smart mouthed party goer from earlier, who likely had some sort of connection to the changes made to his body. He was standing, his scary looking sword hanging on his back on a hook incorporated into his coat, over another man in clothes akin to a priest's black and white uniform. The latter, however, looked to either be quite dead or dying with a pool of blood arrayed around his body, an open book close by with its pages turning due to the light breeze going through the corridor.

He found it to be mildly disturbing at its implications since, aside from some not of the normal facial scarring, the priest guy looked to be completely human.

For Gun Girl he knew it to be decidedly more serious nature just from the gasp he heard as well as the manual cocking of her CZ-75.

"Well, that was quick," his crimson clad copy remarked as he turned around. "I wasn't expecting to see you guys so soon."

"Yeah, well, the scythe guys were busy with weapon maintenance and the giant stone demon figured it was too much trouble to chase after us, so we were able to walk on by," he said trying to keep things casual and calm.

No one laughed.

Not a good sign.

Lady walking around him to get a better look at the corpse on the ground, never once letting her aim waver from CC-Sword Guy's head the entire time, was definitely not a good sign.

"That man… did you kill him?" G-Girl asked, her voice thick with emotion.

Yep. Definitely an of the BAD situation developing right in front of him.

"So what if I did?" CC-Sword replied, showing he didn't treat the act of killing someone as something heavy like most people did.

BANG!

With something that couldn't even be called thought Gun Girl fired her CZ-75 but missed as her target had good enough reflexes to lean his head out of the way. What followed was a gun duel but, to be perfectly honest, he didn't think that it could be called that because, no matter how hard his partner tried to get a clear shot, her opponent was easily able to counter it without any difficulty.

"Oooh, I LOVE a fast woman," the guy said even as he parried the barrel of G-Girl's submachine gun so that it took out some of the lighting while forcing him to get out of the path of the bullets.

"Dammit! Of all the places to have a fight!" he growled since he could not find a single thing to hide behind that'd keep him from getting hit by accident.

It was blatantly obvious that, as skilled as G-Girl was, Sword Guy was just messing with her and not trying at all to really hurt her. Unfortunately his partner noticed this, too, and it only made her that much more upset, causing her to fight more recklessly as well as mouth off a bit.

"He was obsessed with becoming the Devil," G-Girl explained even as she tried to hit CC-Sword. "So much so he killed his own wife. For that he butchered innocent people, too. He's the most vile kind of creature."

 _O-Kay! Not feeling so bad about the seemingly human being getting turned into a corpse,_ he thought, looking down at the bald guy. _If he's done all that then the bastard got off easy with impalement._

Indeed, based on what he could see, the man had been killed with a single sword thrust to the abdomen that would've cut through several vital organs in the process.

Seeing Gun Girl try to pin down CC-Sword with her legs so that she could shoot between them, he thought for a moment it'd work but, with a bit of spinning and positioning, the hold was broken, sending his partner into the nearby wall. However never let it be said that the short haired brunette didn't have the bullheadedness of a certain blonde Slayer because in seconds she was back on her feet. Guns blazing, the two resumed their exchange and he wondered for a moment if he should get involved and try to convince them to discuss this like young adults.

BANG! BA-BANG! BANG BANG!

 _Nope! This is clearly something G-Girl wants to settle with bullets and the other guy looks like he's having too much fun to stop,_ he thought, mentally shaking his head. _If it looks like he's going to kick things up to lethal, I'll jump in, but for now I'm gonna just try to keep myself bullet hole free._

"To top it off, that filthy scum is my father." G-Girl growled out as she took a breather from the fighting, though she might've been stalling for strategy devising time.

 _Wait! Her father!?_ He looked down at the corpse on the floor. _It's official. I've finally met someone with a crappier father figure than me!_

Sure, Tony spent most of his time getting drunk, couldn't hold down a job for more than a year and regularly used him for a punching bag, but at least he wasn't a Devil wannabe. Hell, he could clearly see in his head just how bad things would go if Tony Harris tried to perform some sort of magical ritual, and he almost chuckled at the ridiculousness of the imagery. The man was more likely to wind up blowing both himself and probably the rest of the house up in the attempt, than manage anything approaching the definition of a success.

To hear that the piece of shit on the floor had actually killed his own wife and lots of innocent people trying to replace Lucifer Morningstar as king of Hell… impalement was definitely too good for the guy.

"Well, we have something in common," CC-Sword Guy said sarcastically, as though the info meant nothing to him. "I have a dysfunctional family too."

"And what would you know about family?!" G-Girl said rising to yelling volume as she shoved her CZ-75 into the guy's face. "You're a demon! This is my father… my family! This was all supposed to end by my hand!"

For a moment it looked like his partner was going to resume shooting at the guy but then out of nowhere the head full of anger she'd built up just fell away into dust. Arm dropping to her side even as she turned to look back at the body of her father, she didn't react even a little as CC-Sword Guy began to move away.

"Aren't you gonna shoot?" CC-Sword Guy asked, obviously expecting another gun blazing outburst.

However nothing happened since G-Girl's gaze refused to leave the corpse of her father.

"Well, that's a switch," CC-Sword said cynically at this change of behavior.

"Just go," G-Girl said, sounding more tired than anything else. "I don't care anymore."

With that the corridor's population was reduced to one corpse, one gun toting teenage girl and him, with nothing filling the air but silence.

Indeed, what could he say in light of the revelation he'd just overheard? Nothing. Unlike G-Girl, he'd never really had a singular target for his anger when it came to vampires because he'd never found out which one of the bastards had been the one to drain, then turn Jesse. Instead he'd carpet blamed all of them, allowing him bits of satisfaction each time he managed to stake one or help Buffy turn one to dust. Gun Girl, on the other hand, had known from the beginning, who she wanted to kill and had apparently been on the hunt for quite a while with no success. To suddenly fine the person you wanted to take your vengeance out on dead by someone else's hand… she must've felt so empty. When revenge was all you cared about, when it took up every waking moment, it was no surprise that you'd feel lost once your target no longer existed.

Instead he chose simply to stand, there hoping that she managed to gain some measure of reassurance from his presence.

Of course that idea was squashed when out of nowhere a brief gurgling of awakening came from the body on the floor and its eyes opened, showing a bit of life still lingered.

"Where am I?" Mister Gunn asked, sounding disoriented and afraid.

G-Girl responded by pointing her gun at her father, as though she expected him to get up completely unharmed and start attacking the two of them.

"It's dark, I can't see anything," Mister Gunn said, his eyes unseeing.

"You're still alive, I see," G-Girl declared with venom while maneuvering to the best shooting position.

"Mary? Is that you?" Mister Gunn asked, his head turning in the direction of the teenager who spoke. "What's happening? Where's your mother?"

"My mother?!" G-Girl exclaimed, her grip on her CZ-75 tightening. "You killed her, remember?"

"Yes… that's right. I killed her," Mister Gunn said as memories likely fell into place. "What horrible things have I done? I was too weak. I succumbed to…ungh…influence."

 _Possession…brainwashing…is that what happened to him?_ he thought at this revelation.

His previous evaluation of the man changed since he had experiences of his own when it came to being under the control of a foreign influence. The primal spirit, Soldier Boy, ghosts and cursed chocolate had all been examples of times when he hadn't been fully in control of himself. If this guy had been under someone else's control the entire time, then he was innocent of the acts committed while under that control. Sure, if whatever was done to him was something that could be powered through with sheer will power, that muddied the waters a bit, but if it'd been airtight… no court in the know would find him guilty.

"You mean you were possessed?" G-Girl asked in shock as her mind no doubt raced through the possibilities.

Mister Gunn tried to reply but the trouble from his wounds chose that moment to spike, causing his daughter to drop her gun and kneel by his side.

"Yes, I was manipulated," Mister Gunn replied, having regained some measure of strength. "Manipulated by a Devil, named… ungh… Vergil."

"Vergil," G-Girl said, as though testing the sound of the name of what likely was her true target.

"He's attempting to bring the demon world back to this modern day," Mister Gunn said with great passion. "A world that Sparda once sealed off."

Sparda… that name shook him as it reverberated through his body, like it was something important he couldn't believe he'd forgotten. Feelings, instincts and for a moment an image rushed through him, but just as quickly as they came they vanished. It was quite disturbing, especially without a definable source but, since the episode was gone now, he decided he'd worry about it later when he had something more to go on.

"Sparda? I thought he was a myth," G-Girl, aka Mary, said, sounding like she was having trouble accepting her father's words.

"If the demons return, this world will be thrown into chaos," Mister Gunn said, grasping his daughter's hand. "Stop…ungh…him. Stop…Vergil!"

 _Won't be long now,_ he thought sadly as he looked at the man's strength becoming less and less. _To use up whatever he has left to pass on this info… a good man without a doubt._

"Me?" Mary asked as though she couldn't believe she was being chosen for the job.

"You are such a sweet child, just like your mother," Mister Gunn said as he raised his right hand to brush it against her cheek.

Then, with a dramatic reaching for the light coming from the ceiling of the corridor, the man's life left him, leaving his partner to grieve over a man she'd been wrong about for so long.

Watching as she called out his name and cried out in grief, he found himself having a very different reaction to what he'd just seen.

Hadn't the man claimed to be unable to see?

If that was the case then his reaching for both his daughter's cheek and the light overhead, should've been a great deal more exploratory and tentative than it had been. Both indicated that he was at least partially able to see, if not in great detail, but that didn't make sense. If the loss of sight had been the result of the loss of blood or because there was a poison in his system, then it would've been impossible to recover it so close to death. The more he thought about it, the more what he'd witnessed seemed to stink of being a performance put on for his and Mary's benefit.

Yet at the same time the confusion, the sadness, he'd heard earlier sounded completely genuine, so what the hell was going on.

Was he being controlled remotely?

Possibly, but if that were indeed the case then he didn't think it likely that Vergil was the controller. Every time when Mister Gunn's explanation reached a point where he named Vergil as the one who'd been controlling him, the man seemed to struggle for a moment before continuing. Some might excuse this simply as Vergil not wanting his actions to be exposed but he saw a more sinister possibility.

What if the man was indeed being manipulated but by someone or something other than this Vergil guy?

What if, in his own way, Mister Gunn was trying to convey that it wasn't Vergil who'd been responsible for his past actions?

Based on what he'd seen, it looked like, while Mary's dad had managed to put up something of a fight, it also looked like it hadn't been enough. That meant whoever or whatever had been controlling him had been the one to name Vergil as the guilty party, so going after the guy would be playing right into their hands. The wise course of action would be to confront Vergil and attempt to fish for information about who might want him eliminated or at the very least distracted. However, as Mary raised her furious gaze, he knew that he wouldn't be getting her consent to try something like that in place of just going all medieval on Vergil's ass.

Not without some pretty convincing evidence that there were puppeteers behind yet another curtain controlling how things were unfolding.

Seeing her pick up the book that presumably belonged to her father, place it on his chest and then place both dead hands on top of it, he could tell that she was ready to leave. Checking his own weapons to make sure that they were ready for any potential obstacles in their way, he promised himself that he'd keep his eyes peeled for these hidden puppeteers.

With something like the potential end of the world, he couldn't risk doing anything less.

 _ **Higher Realm of Existence**_

"He suspects something," One said with a frown and a bit of concern.

"Let him. Without proof, Mary Arkham won't even listen to him much less believe him so it matters not." Two said, dismissing the concern immediately.

"I'm surprised that the human Arkham was able to resist our influence even a little," Three said with minimal respect. "After so many years I'd thought his spirit would've been too fragile to put forth such an effort."

"Likely being reunited with his daughter gave him momentary coherence and resolve," Four said, sounding like he'd given it at least some thought.

"Whatever the case, they won't be able to follow Dante too easily, given the route he's chosen," Two said as he looked at the split view before them. "Of the routes they will be able to take only two of them lead to the control room in the basement. One of them possesses a gatekeeper."

"Then we must do what we can to divert both Mary Arkham and Alexander Harris towards the gatekeeper. It will slow them down and will make sure that they don't arrive in the control room before Vergil or Dante," Three said after a moment's consideration. "If they got there before either true Son of Sparda did, our plan will slide off track."

"Very well. Let us begin our adjustments," Four said as the group brought their power along with their skill to the forefront.

So far their actions had gone unnoticed and apparently slipped by that infuriating woman's senses. If they could continue to act without being forced into the spotlight, they could eliminate the thorn in their side before it had a chance to grow even larger.

For the sake of the Balance they had no choice but to make use of whatever methods produced the best results.

 _ **Mary 'Lady' Arkham's POV**_

"I am SERIOUSLY hating these things!" Xander griped even as he whirled around to fire at the multi-tentacled demon that moments ago had been a cloud of gas.

"They're called Soul Eaters!" she said impatiently even as she did a quick turn of her own before killing two of them with her CZ-75 and submachine gun. "Stop griping and take them down! We have to stop Vergil!"

She wanted to say 'kill' Vergil but to her the act would be a very personal one that she refused to add the word 'we' to since she would allow no one else but her to kill the Devil that'd been controlling her father for so many years. By making it sound as though the goal was preventing the connection between the human and demon worlds from being made, her determination would be more in line with what Xander had on his mind. If he knew the truth, that she was so close to being tempted to discard the safety of the world in exchange for revenge, he would watch her closer and perhaps even insist that she separate herself from the fight. He'd probably say that she was too personally connected to everything and that it was clouding her judgment, but she WOULD NOT be obstructed from her quest for vengeance.

Her mother had been killed because of Vergil.

Countless innocent people had been butchered because of Vergil.

Even now the detestable Devil was preparing to open up the gateway to the demon world to unleash unheard of horrors upon the innocent people of the world.

Even if this plan failed, it was almost certain that the Devil would go in search of some other means by which to bring suffering and death to the human race.

Only by ending the foul being could the Earth be rendered safe from his sinful actions.

That ending would come at her hands and she would NOT be denied.

Thus, with a one-two barrage, the last of the Soul Eaters were killed with the crimson energy given off by their corpses, drifting over to Xander's revolvers before being absorbed.

"I think that's the last of them," Xander said when no more green clouds could be seen and neither could the horrible screeches be heard.

"Then let's get going before another pack finds us," she said putting fresh magazines into her guns before holstering them. "We can't waste time fighting every single demon."

With that she took the lead, for once no longer caring about whether or not Xander was behind her. It'd been hours since the two of them had been forced into a partnership and there'd been numerous times in which he could have betrayed her had that been her goal. Yet, instead of doing that he had been doing his best to support her, even going so far so as to take hits that he could shrug off but would've seriously hurt her. A whisper in the back of her mind still insisted that everything he'd done so far could've been an act meant to put her at ease but it was just a whisper and nothing to act on.

Besides, when he'd been in the lead, he'd moved slowly and cautiously.

What they needed was speed and for that reason she was taking the lead.

Running down the corridor as fast as what little caution she still had would permit, she tried to choose directions that would best match the probable route of that asshole demon. She might not know the layout of the entire tower but there were enough variables that she could have an easier time choosing the right direction to go in.

They were no longer heading up, but rather down.

When she'd first encountered her enchanted father, she was much farther up the tower than he'd been when she and Xander had found him. To her that meant that Vergil's destination was not the top of the tower but rather the bottom of Temen-ni-gru. Thus she looked for routes that led down and frustratingly that sometimes required that the two of them backtrack when they found that the route took them up rather than down, but she made sure they didn't lose much time. Of course whenever they came across demons that they couldn't avoid, they were forced to fight but she did all she could to end them swiftly. When the enemy was in large clumps she used her rocket launcher to kill them and when there were those who stood off on their own she did her best to get head shots on all of them. Any that she missed Xander was quick to take down, either with his revolvers or with the demon weapons that he possessed. The more they fought, the more she gained a grasp of how he fought, how he thought and therefore could adjust her own actions to mesh properly with his.

At the same time she could tell that he was not used to fighting on the front lines because it showed in how he occasionally drifted into her line of fire or let enemies get behind him. If she had to peg his normal role, best she would say that he was the gopher who wanted to be a front line warrior. Before now all he'd done was a bunch of odd jobs so that those more qualified than him could do their jobs, but at the same time Xander likely wanted to share the danger the front liner's faced.

The problem there was that the job of the front line soldier faced looked much simpler to someone on the sidelines than it actually was. From the sidelines it looked like the soldiers fighting had everything under control and were completely aware of both what they themselves were doing as well as what was going on around them. The truth was that there were countless things going through a front line soldier's mind as they fought that no normal person could do if they didn't have the aptitude for it. Xander was learning this firsthand as he fought the demons in the tower but on the job training could lead to serious mistakes, and fatal ones. Granted, it was harder to permanently harm him due to the changes that Vergil forced her father to make to his body but that didn't mean he was invulnerable.

Better to pound out any bad habits he developed as they emerged then wait until after Vergil was dead and they had time to solidify.

As she turned a corner she spotted a door at the end of the corridor but it looked different from the others.

All of the others were solid steel and, while there were signs that they hadn't been used in a long time, they were still fully functional. The one before her, though, had signs of plants squeezing through the gaps to the point where she figured that they'd have trouble opening it. However she knew that all the other routes besides this one either led back up to the top of the tower, thus she chose to go with the most direct solution.

Bringing up her Kalina Ann she fired upon the door, intent on destroying it as well as clearing away the plants on the other side. The first shot did damage the door and shred the plants that crept through to this side but nothing more. The second shot succeeded in distorting the shape of the door by a moderate amount but it was the third rocket that finally knocked it down to the ground on the other side.

Charging through, she was somewhat surprised to see what looked to be some sort of demonic greenhouse that had plants that had the base traits of recognizable Earth vegetation but then added hellish qualities. Indeed, as she walked, she could see the branches, the vines and the flowers moving in a way that no normal Earth plant was capable of. It was almost as if they were aware of her and Xander being there in their midst but weren't attacking for some reason. Was it because the two of them were outside the range of the plants? Maybe. Was it because they were under a stronger demon's control? Maybe. Whatever the case, she would stay in the halfway point between the groups of demonic vegetation on either side of her. With a bit of luck this would keep her or Xander from accidentally provoking an attack, as well as keep them outside of the plants' viable attack range.

"Why do you think they had a garden in here?" Xander asked as they proceeded with all due caution. "I mean, I figured demons for only being meat eaters."

"This isn't a garden to grow food for demons," she replied, recalling what her mentor had told her. "These plants are demons. My sensei once told me that there are hundreds of different species and that many of them had never set foot on Earth. With so many different breeds, it's not that surprising that some of them would be plants."

"Huh. Guess not," he said, agreeing with her logic. "Just hope my usual kind of luck doesn't kick in."

"What kind of luck is that?" she asked out of mild curiosity without losing awareness of her surroundings.

"Who dares trespass in my garden?" a voice asked, sounding like it was coming from the right.

It sounded female in nature but she didn't seal that label into place because, when it came to demons, you couldn't apply the same sort of rules or definitions as you would on humans. That was one of the reasons why demon researchers and their products existed in the first place, after all: To learn all they could about those who threatened mankind in order to devise more effective methods of fighting them.

"That kind of luck," Xander sighed as he pulled his twin scimitar from their sheaths. "For some reason, if it's nonhuman and female they seem to take a liking to me. Most of them just want me to fertilize their eggs, become their undead boy toy or some sort of sacrifice. If this is another one of those, it could be a very good thing or a very bad thing."

A demon magnet?

Most people wrote off such a concept as just an element used in works of fiction for humor or horror. However she'd heard stories from other demon hunters who she trusted enough that she didn't think they'd bullshit her just to make her look like a fool. According to the stories there were people that demons of both genders seemed attracted to more than the rest, sometimes to the point of obsession. While not all instances were investigated, the few times it was the evidence discovered suggested that there was something unique to their heritage that the demon species could detect somehow. Most figured it had to be something powerful or something that certain species of demons had an instinctive attraction to that perhaps they weren't consciously aware of.

However, like all attractions, they weren't foolproof or irresistible, so if there was a mistress of this garden then the demoness could very well be able to resist whatever attraction felt towards Xander. She would wait for signs of hostility, signs that they wouldn't be able to work out some kind of understanding that would allow them to pass through unharmed, before she actively aimed in the female demon's direction.

The mistress of the garden appeared after a bit and, from what she could see, it was difficult to classify her as either a humanoid plant or human with plant-like attributes. All that she could say for certain was that it would be a serious mistake to unnecessarily provoke her because she and Xander were already deep within the demoness' lion's den. With S'nork all they had to worry about were attacks that came directly from him but in this case they had an entire room to deal with.

"My name is Alexander and this is Mary," Xander said, using her given name as he respectfully bowed to the plant demoness. "Please forgive us for intruding in your domain. We merely seek to reach the chamber where Temen-ni-gru may be controlled. I humbly request that you grant us safe passage through your domain."

 _So he's trying the respectful and polite approach,_ she thought as she split her attention between the surrounding area and the demoness. _Could work. Some demons do react well to being treated right but…_

"Words? Words is all you bring before Demetria?" Demetria the plant demonness asked like a girlfriend who'd just received a bouquet of weed flowers on a date instead of proper roses.

"Sadly so," Xander replied with convincing regret. "I entered this tower not knowing precisely who dwelt within. Had I known you were here, I would have been sure to bring a suitable offering."

This seemed to dim the demoness' anger somewhat but it did not eliminate it all together.

"It is true that Temen-ni-gru has been sealed a long time. Long enough that you vermin could forget what proper tribute is for Demetria," Demetria said, sounding imperious but conceding. "Very well. Your female is mine. For her I will allow you safe passage through my garden."

 _WHAT!?_ She thought even as her jaw dropped a bit in shock.

"My subjects have been forced to subsist on demon flesh for so long devouring a human will please them greatly," Demetria explained, apparently catching the dumbfounded look.

"And that's your final offer?" Xander asked, giving nothing away with his inquiry.

"It is," Demetria replied imperiously, as though she held all the cards.

"Why does it always have to be this way?" Xander asked, looking up as if at some unseen deity.

Then, with more speed than she'd previously witnessed, he pulled both of his revolvers and opened fire on Demetria. Whether it was because the demoness had been anticipating the violence or just had good reflexes, the planet demon managed lean out of the way, proving that while some parts of her might mimic flesh and bone, both were much more flexible.

Glad that Xander hadn't hesitated to refuse the offer to sacrifice her in return for safe passage, she brought her own guns up in order to add her firepower to his. This proved to be enough to put pressure on Demetria so that she had no choice but to relocate in order to avoid being injured, but it also provoked her into counterattacking. From out of nowhere thorny vines sprung forth from behind the demoness, lashing out like whips as the foul creature tried to tear through human flesh. They had a long reach and almost seemed to have a homing feature of some kind because, even with a leap or a roll to the side, she found she still needed to take a few more steps. Once she got a good enough feel for it, though, she was able to do it automatically, allowing her to attack more often but her offensive results were not up to snuff.

With such a flexible body possessing a high range of movement, it was proving to be quite difficult to find positions or stances where Demetria couldn't dodge and evade. It only seemed when Xander's fire and hers intersected that they did any appreciable damage to the demoness, but with the unpredictability of the vines and the subsequent dodging, setting up such crosses was difficult.

To make matters worse, anytime one of them got too close to the demonic plants lining the edge of the room they attacked, nearly catching her unwary some of the time. Whether it was leaves as sharp as shuriken, shorter vine whips or maws of very sharp teeth atop short flexible necks, there was always something waiting for them if either she or Xander got careless.

Faced with two threats, her level of tension and awareness were pushed to a high level of operation in an effort to keep from getting harmed. The problem with operating at full tilt, though, was that it wore you out pretty quickly and the only way to combat it was to work to increase your stamina. Sadly that could not been done quickly, so that solution was of no help to her at the moment. So instead she decided to go with some of her more limited ammunition in order to resolve the issue more quickly. Using the bayonet attached to the underside of the rocket launcher's barrel, she planted it in the floor before firing off the largest barrage of mini-missiles that she could at Demetria.

 _Doesn't matter how well she can evade if things are blowing up all around her,_ she thought with a smirk of confidence.

Just as she'd predicted, the demoness was unable to effectively dodge all the mini-missiles and, while most just dealt glancing damage caused by proximity, two managed direct hits.

"You dare hurt Demetria! YOU VERMIN!" Demetria screamed with fury even as she brought her vines into a tight circle around her in order to protect herself.

The vines proved to be quite durable but that wasn't a surprise since they'd have to be in order to survive being repeatedly slammed into the ground without breaking. Still, the explosions did some damage in the form of burns and a bit of surface damage but it'd likely take a direct hit from some of her main missiles it break through.

Fortunately Xander had another idea and it didn't take her more than a second to figure out what it was. Continuing her support with her mini-missiles, she watched as her partner approached Demetria, a scimitar unsheathed in each hand. She waited just until just before he arrived before stopping her barrage and then she watched as the white-haired man began to hack away at the vines to get at the female demon inside. However, much like her mini-missiles, the blades, while doing damage, would take a few swings to cut a single vine off the demoness' body.

Swings that were quickly put to a stop since, without her mini-missile, there was not enough danger to require the vine wall, allowing for Demetria to lash out with half of them to push Xander away.

 _Still, we have a workable strategy for dealing with her,_ she thought as she prepared another salvo of mini-missiles to force the demoness to restore her vine barrier to full strength. _I force her to give everything to defense and then Xander goes in and chips away at it until it falls. Once it's gone, we can bring everything to bear on Demetria's main body and take her down._

Then she remembered something, something important!

 _Remember, Mary. While most of the demons you will fight are little better than animals, there do exist those with smarts on the same level as humans and some that're even smarter. Treat them like they can't adapt to counter your strategies and they'll make you pay for it._

That's what her mentor had told her after she'd made an offhand comment about fighting demons being like fighting monsters in a videogame from minions to big bosses. He hadn't been angry with her per se but he made sure she didn't just brush off his words and forget.

With this in mind she moved to take up a more cautionary posture, making sure to keep her eyes sharp for any sign of a new method of attack or defense.

When she saw another series of vine whip attacks were coming her way she pulled her launcher out of the ground and moved swiftly to get outside of the strike's reach. However, just as she thought that she'd gotten clear of the vines, something happened that she had not anticipated: the thorns on each of the vines shot out like spikes loosed from concealing holes. They extended far and, without any idea how many thorns there were or what their trajectories were, dodging them was as much instinct as it was thought. Harder and harder she moved but, when her eyes spotted a jade thorn spike heading her way, she knew without thinking that she wouldn't be able to evade it.

Then, with a blur, she found herself flying through the air, heard the sound of metal hitting the ground and a grunt of pain.

When she mentally and physically regained her equilibrium she pushed herself up off the ground to see what had happened and beheld a drastic turning of the tide.

Pinned by one shoulder to the wall just above the carnivorous plants that lined the edges of the chamber was Xander and, from the looks of things, he seemed to be in pain. She needed to free Xander but not in a way that would dump him into the waiting maws of the deadly plants. She'd seen him get hit since they'd been forced to partner up but she'd also seen the various wounds heal up to the point of vanishing as well. Oddly enough she'd even seen the holes created in his clothing repair themselves, but it wasn't like organic healing but rather like an invisible tailor was sewing the torn fabric seamlessly back together. Nevertheless she somehow doubted that he would be able to survive being bitten in half or immersed in digestive juices.

Bringing up her CZ-75 and submachine gun, she aimed them at a point a meter or so away from Xander's shoulder before opening fire. By doing so she hoped that there would be enough if the spike to keep him safely pinned to the wall but also keep it short enough that he could push himself off of it to leap clear of the dangerous plants. Every bullet that hit the spike at the desired point chipped away at it but, just as she was about to succeed in severing it from Demetria's vine, something happened that she could not have foreseen.

Out of nowhere and at great speed two objects cut through the air, impaling Xander both on the right and on the left side of his chest. It was only when they came to a stop that she could identify them as Xander's own twin scimitars and they were buried in him almost to the hilt guards. The look of shock he had on his face mirrored the one that she could feel on her own because, of all the moves that Demetria could have made, neither of them had likely anticipated this. For a moment she could see Xander struggle to reach up to pull his weapons out so that the healing power her father had given him could close the wound and repair the damage done. However, the closer his hands came to the hilts of his weapons, the harder it appeared to be for him to continue to carry out his desired act. Just as it seemed as though he would succeed in grasping his weapons to pull them out, all strength left him and his arms dropped to his sides even as his chin dropped.

"The vermin dared to harm me with those blades but I have killed him with them instead," Demetria said, sounding quite pleased with herself. "Now it is your turn to die the death he took for himself, vermin."

She was alone.

Her weapons were barely proving to be effective against Demetria and, as the demoness had already proven, her thorn spike technique was capable of exceeding her ability to evade it.

Yet just the same she was unwilling to just give up and let herself be killed.

There were still so many things that she needed to do and being dead wouldn't help with that.

Guess there was just one thing left to say to the monster.

"You want me dead, you bitch?!" she asked rhetorically as she aimed both her weapons at the murderer. "You're gonna have to work for it!"

 _ **Xander's POV**_

 _Where…?_ He looked at the darkness that surrounded him.

His mind… it was more sluggish than any time previous that he could remember. Like thick syrup sliding down the side of a pancake, he remembered that he'd been fighting this plant demon called Demetria after his attempt to peacefully negotiate passage fell through. It was a tough battle since her weapons made it impossible to get in close, so he'd been forced to rely on Nue no Gin to attack. That had been a new brand of difficulty since her inhuman body had allowed her to dodge the incoming shots like she was some sort of rubber band woman. He and Mary had done their best to come up with new plans of attack to deal with their foe, using the weapons that they had available. When his partner had used mini-missiles to force Demetria to pull in all her vines to defend, he'd been able to get in close for the first time since the fight had begun.

For a time he'd thought that they'd found a way to take their first steps towards victory but when the thorns turned into spikes he'd realized that the two of them had been fooling themselves.

Never had that fact been more accurate when a spike had shot towards Mary and he'd known that the teenager would not be able to protect herself in time. Almost without thinking he'd pushed himself from standing to sprinting, pushing himself to move as fast as he could but even then he'd almost been too late. As it was he'd been able to save his partner but had been unable to remove himself from the path of the spike, resulting in it carrying him through the air until he hit a wall and it finished going through him to pierce the wall. Mary had then tried to use her guns to break off the spike so he could free himself but before he'd been able to do so, something happened that he had not anticipated.

Demetria had used two of her free vines to pluck Praeteritum and Mellontikós from where he'd dropped them and then flung them at him.

He hadn't had the time to bring his free arm up to intercept them and his left arm was immobilized thanks to the spike that impaled that shoulder. Feeing the blades pierce his chest he had, for two seconds, thought that it was no big thing since he'd been impaled before. However when he'd begun to feel his strength fading and his sense of touch began to go numb, he was shown just how wrong he was. Something about the wounds caused by his own weapons had been different and as a result his desire to live had compelled him to try and pull the blades out. It'd been his belief that once they were gone he'd heal up just like he'd done until then, but even as he'd worked to grip the hilts the last of his strength deserted him.

That was the last thing he remembered.

 _Am I dead?_

 _You are and you are not,_ came a reply from behind him that caused him to turn around.

When his eyes fell upon the eyes of the source of the response, he found it to be a man in his late thirties or early forties dressed in clothes that had to be at least two centuries out of date. Mostly purple in color, with pink and blue trimming around the edges, it was definitely one of the more outlandish outfits he'd seen but thankfully not falling into Liberace territory. With white gloves and a monocle over the left eye the guy definitely looked to be upper crust in nature and that matched how he spoke. Still more important than that was what the man had said.

 _How can somebody be dead and not dead?_ he asked, still wondering where he'd wound up. _Do you mean I'm undead like a vampire?_

 _No. It would be more accurate to say that you are currently on the border between life and death,_ the man said, taking on a more contemplative tone. _Oddly enough this is your second time here, though you don't remember the first time thanks to certain circumstances._

 _Then please point me in the direction of the living, 'cause I can't be dead right now._ he said, worried about how Mary was doing.

 _That's what I'm here for,_ the man said with a small grin. _If you were human you'd be already on your way to the gates of heaven but, because of what Arkham did to you, you have a choice to make. If you choose to live you will gain great power, since the power of the Devil inside of you will fully awaken and assert itself. Power attracts power and those with great amounts of it must take the absolute care needed to utilize it responsibly. A normal life will no longer be a possibility._

 _Like I had a normal life to begin with? I fight demons and monsters back home, for crying out loud!_ He saw no humor at how 'normal' his life was. _I see magic being done every other week! Besides, it's not like I was normal before I got here… wherever here is._

 _This will be different. You have my power now… the power of the Dark Knight Sparda,_ Sir Sparda said to him with grave importance. _While not to the same degree as me since I was a pure Devil and you are but a half-Devil, it will still make you stand out. Both the light and the darkness will likely see you as an abomination to be killed. Even those who don't will be wary of you, wondering which way you will go due to your mixed heritage, and just by being connected to you, they will be in danger._

 _One of them's already got a bullseye on her chest and the rest chose to fight by her side knowing the danger,_ he said, certain of choices each member of the Scooby gang had made. _I'm also pretty sure that I've pissed off enough people on both sides of the war that I've earned a place on their shit list._

A part of him knew that Sparda was talking about something much greater than what he was talking about but he just had no real frame of reference for it. All he knew about the good fight was what he'd experienced ever since he'd chosen to stand by Buffy. Seeing as how he'd managed to survive that as a normal human, he wasn't all that intimidated now that he'd gotten a power up. If this 'awakening' would make him even stronger than he'd been up until Demetria killed him, then the tide might finally turn on the Hellmouth.

 _Really? Do you think you can face this?_

An image of a giant spider, half stone and half lava, charging towards him on its eight legs appeared in his mind.

 _Or this?_

A large bird-like creature with crimson energy swirling in its chest hovering in the air above him, making him feel like a mouse would against a panther.

 _Or perhaps you think you can handle the boss of bosses._

A writhing mass of living tissue with a trio of eyes and hundreds of hands pulsated before him like a giant pile of waste from an abattoir. However he could feel POWER, terrible POWER, that made him feel like he was facing the ruler of hell himself.

 _Wha-wha-WHAT THE HELL!? WHO OR WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!?_

 _That was the Demon King Mundus,_ Sir Sparda replied, looking like Buffy did before her final battle with Angelus. _He rules the hell dimension I was born in and is akin to a force of nature. When he tried to invade the human world two thousand years ago, it took all I had to beat him and his armies back enough to seal Temen-ni-gru away._

 _Whoa…_ he said as he tried to imagine not only fighting a demon army but also a Demon King.

 _While I do not expect that the Darkness Mundus will come through himself anytime soon, that doesn't mean others will not come by his command or in an effort to gain his favor,_ Sir Sparda said with all due seriousness. _For opposing him and denying him dominion over the Earth Mundus has no doubt made it clear to all who would listen his hatred of me. It was on his orders that my wife and I were killed ten years ago._

 _Wait! You're…dead?_

 _Of course. What did you think I was?_ Sir Sparda asked, as though surprised that this fact hadn't been readily apparent.

 _I thought you were some sort of mojo user talking to me telepathically or something,_ he replied since it'd been the most logical of possibilities.

 _That'd have been nice but no,_ Sir Sparda said with a wistful grin. _I am quite dead but, unlike humans, my power and my spirit do not leave my body all at once. The stronger the devil, the longer it takes before both have fully fled the body. When the sorcerer Arkham drew on my power to turn you into one of my progeny, he also drew upon the fragments of my spirit._

 _So what? You're like a broken ghost?_ he asked, trying to figure everything out in his head.

 _Well, I wouldn't put it quite so badly as that,_ Sir Sparda replied, sounding a little annoyed. _More like I'm an echo of who I used to be._

He didn't quite understand but he figured he'd just shrug it off as 'he is a ghost' and leave it at that.

Less strain on the brain.

 _Whatever. Bottom line, even if I can't say I'm ready for King Barf and his pets from hell, the only other option I got is death and I don't go down that easy._ _Besides, what sort of guy would I be to leave a girl in the middle of a demon infested tower all by herself?_

 _Heh. Keep that sense of humor young, Alexander, because I can guarantee you you're going to need it,_ Sir Sparda said with an amused grin. _Welcome to the line of Sparda, young nephilim. Welcome to the war._

With that Sir Sparda began to glow an ominous crimson and black.

Brighter and brighter the glow became until it was almost impossible to make out his outline and, just as Sir Sparda surged towards him, he saw something odd.

A second outline behind Sir Sparda's, but this one of purest gold in color. That was all he got before the black and red energy hit him right in the middle of the chest.

Power ran through him unlike anything he'd ever experienced before, almost to the point where his senses were impaired. So great was the overload that he almost didn't realize it when he was suddenly back in the garden of Demetria on his knees. As he rose to his feet, it was almost as if his body was prioritizing getting used to the ever-rolling power now swimming throughout his body because his movements felt more sluggish.

Raising his eyes, he found both Demetria and Mary looking at him with utter shock, as though they could scarcely believe what they were seeing.

Before he took more than two steps instinct flared and his hands shot up to catch his twin scimitar as they returned him from whence they'd likely been flung before he'd returned. Gripping each one firmly, he resumed his walk towards Demetria, unable to move quicker than a steady trot. Shock turned to anger on the demoness' face, as though she were furious at ever showing such weakness and towards him for causing it. With words he could not make out in his current state, the plant demon attacked but the moment he chose to oppose it the rules of the world decided to take a raincheck.

Her vines seemed to slow as they sailed towards him and, even as the thorns turned to spikes, they were about as threatening as leaves being blown on the wind. With Praeteritum he almost negligently batted aside the vines closest to him and then with Mellontikós he swung to sever the vines, only making physical contact with one but somehow managing to cut three. Twice more the demoness tried to use her weapons against him and twice more he was able to parry them before destroying them. It was almost too easy but he remained on guard. Only once he saw Demetria take a step backwards in fear did he decide that the time had come to go on the offensive and, like he'd suddenly emerged from neck high water, speed unheard of was his to wield. Almost before even realizing it he was in front of Demetria, bringing Mellontikós down aimed at her skull but it turned out that the demoness was no slouch in the speed department herself.

With great speed she seemingly pulled a length of green vegetation from her body that turned out to be a sort of staff, though it bore some resemblance to the thorn spikes that came from her whip vines. However, when his scimitar connected with it, the staff proved it could hold up to the sharpness of the blade, managing to stop it cold with little visible damage.

"What… what are you!?" Demetria exclaimed, unable to keep the fear from showing in her voice.

"Who knows? I don't even know myself," he replied, his voice sounding a little odd.

Deciding not to fall into the clichéd trap of getting too cocky with a new wellspring of power, he decided to channel all the power he had into one move and end the fight for good. Gathering it up within himself like he was gathering snow, he compressed it together into a sort of snowball, adding new layers as swiftly as he could. Then, when it felt like he could gather no more, he tried to channel it towards his body in order to enable himself to move faster as well as hit harder than ever before.

Enough to utterly dominate Demetria and end her existence.

What happened though was something different as his world underwent yet another change.

"YAGH!" he bellowed as the energy he'd gathered overcame him and his senses transformed.

His eyes saw more than just color and form.

His ears heard more than just the upset demonic plants and the breathing of those in the room.

His skin felt more than the air in the room and its temperature.

All was more and it was amidst this that he acted to shove Demetria's spear off of his scimitar, but for some reason she flew backwards as though she'd been thrown. Not looking a gift horse in the mouth he lunged after her, somehow able to do so with one push of his legs and, in prime position, he lashed out with Mellontikós. Blood went flying as his blade dug deep into the she-demon's flesh but he didn't let up. He couldn't let her regenerate with him being ignorant of how long his new height of power would last before it faded away. He needed to finish the fight while he had the advantage!

Even as she used what little strength she had left to try to get away from him he was easily able to change direction to follow her and, with another swing, he cut off her right arm just above the elbow on a human. As she screamed out in pain he lashed out again, taking off the other arm before elbow checking her into the nearest wall hard enough to leave cracks. Seeing her open her mouth to expel air, he knew he had but a few seconds in which his foe would be vulnerable. With a spin to build up momentum, a move that would probably have any master swordsman lecturing him on the stupidity of the move, he decapitated Demetria, causing her head to descend away from her shoulders.

The fight was over.

And not a moment too soon since almost immediately he felt his new level of power begin to fade away but, before it did, a green orb of light left Demetria's torso. Much like how it'd been with S'nork it made its way towards him but, unlike before, he only caught a glimpse of the new weapon he'd gained before it vanished, likely to where the maul and hook chain waited to be summoned. All he could make out was a spear-like form but there were two spots that looked to have thin brown rings wrapped around the spear, but he didn't know what their function was. Whatever it was, he was sure it'd be pretty damn awesome if the previous ones were anything to go by.

In one fell swoop his power levels reverted back to where they'd been before his impalement, albeit with a residual tingle still humming throughout his body.

"Well… that didn't go as plan," he said as he turned to where Mary stood. "But all's well that ends well, right?"

"LIKE HELL IT IS!" Mary shouted, coming out of her shock, storming up to him and giving him a solid right cross to the jaw. "WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED!?"

"What do you mean?" he asked as he rubbed his jaw, somewhat surprised at his partner's outburst.

"YOU! WERE! DEAD!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. "You got both your swords shoved into your chest! Every demon I know of would've been killed by that so WHAT THE HELL!?"

"I dunno. I remember meeting… someone… and choosing something… but it's getting more and more blurry," he replied as he tried to draw on the memories needed to answer Mary's question. "Does it really matter? I'm alive and Demetria's not. Let's just be happy with that."

"Only a novice demon hunter would say something like that!" she pressed, unwilling to let what she'd witnessed go. "Details are everything in the demon hunting business. Besides, anything connected to a transformation means whatever happened is more than just skin deep."

"Transformation? What transformation?" he asked with complete befuddlement.


End file.
